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ELDEN RING: Shadow Of The Erdtree |OT| ⋆☽ Delve Into The Land Of Shadowy Embrace ✰ The Age Of Stars Is Almost Upon Us! ☾⋆

Draugoth

Gold Member
Started the DLC now with a Mage build, 5 attempts for Rellana and 6 for Gaol. You cant really beat Rellana easily without a Blood Build or Leda with Spirit Ashes, otherwise you will be stuck for days
 
Holy shit, just found myself in the Shaman Village. Incredible atmosphere, the lore implications, this is the reason for the DLC. Love what they did here. Already have some thoughts about the entire situation, Messmer, etc. Will be nice to analyze and theory craft with the rest of you guys later on. Is there a lore OT or are we gonna do that here as well?
 

Fbh

Member
Played some Monster Hunter World with a few friends today.
And man, after a weekend spent fighting Messmer and some other bosses it's like the Diabloses and Nergigantes move in slow motion now lol
 
Finally felled the final boss after what must of been around 50+ attempts... and I did it off a parry-riposte!
I fought Radahn solo with a focus on pure melee at Scadutree Blessing +20 and level 202. Probably one of the hardest bosses in FromSoft's history, but I had an incredible time learning the moveset. The only attack that I couldn't consistently dodge was the homing meteors followed by teleport into ground pound and finishing with an AOE. Aside from that, ultimately every move had its tell and weakness. The speed of the engagement and damage output left very little room for error however.

I was able to take them down by using the Deflecting Hardtear to punish with guard counters from Leda's Sword (light greatsword). This let me dispatch of the first phase quite quickly since I could recognize when a moveset was ending. I threw in a couple of parry-ripostes, too - this was really effective for breaking up the light show that happens in the second phase. Second phase relied much more on dodge-rolling since trying to "deflect" through everything would have my character get hit by beams of light shooting down after each swing. Guard counters could still be used for a small portion of the combos though (namely the left swing, right swing, dual-cross swing combo). As someone else mentioned earlier, sticking to Radahn's left side (your right) will help you avoid a good portion of swings and residual damage.

zyEXcQ.png

What an amazing end to Elden Ring, even further cementing its place as one of the greatest games of all time. Gonna play a bit more while I collect my thoughts for a follow-up post.

zyEwZa.png
 
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SJRB

Gold Member
Holy shit, just found myself in the Shaman Village. Incredible atmosphere, the lore implications, this is the reason for the DLC. Love what they did here. Already have some thoughts about the entire situation, Messmer, etc. Will be nice to analyze and theory craft with the rest of you guys later on. Is there a lore OT or are we gonna do that here as well?

We definitely need a dedicated thread to prevent spoiling things.

I have a LOT of thoughts but I’m still processing everything.
 

DelireMan7

Member
Started the DLC now with a Mage build, 5 attempts for Rellana and 6 for Gaol. You cant really beat Rellana easily without a Blood Build or Leda with Spirit Ashes, otherwise you will be stuck for days
She's overwhelming at first but you can do solo melee build without build.
In the end she has several opening during her combos.
You can also jump attack over some of her attacks.

Took me quite some tries to get the rythm and different punish but I did it and it didn't take days.

But definitely need to learn her moveset and variation perfectly.
 

DelireMan7

Member
Finally arrived in Abyssal woods.

Nice atmosphere, a bit spooky. But so far quite empty (which add to the atmosphere). Got the map and the grace just after.

Also I liked the catacombs where you have to light the lights. It felt like a proper dungeon.

I leave for 2 weeks so it will have to wait before I finish the it.
 

Arsic

Loves his juicy stink trail scent

He didn’t mark his video description to make it easy to check which does what. I don’t want to watch every item.

Basically what works best with blood I guess. My new run is doing the Reduvia dagger.
 
Ancient Ruins of Rauh just about finished. OMG @ that hidden fight against dancing lion 2.0 - death incarnate. I was just exploring and totally was not prepared, but scraped by the skin of my teeth with a sliver of health left on the first attempt. Did NOT expect the instant death attacks, I spent more of the fight avoiding those than fighting the lion...
 

winjer

Gold Member
For me as a mage, Messmer The Impaler is impossible, tried 30 times already :(

I don't know if you have already tried it, but he is weak to Slash, Holy and Frostbite.
A simple dagger with chilling mist, can be a great start for a fight. It debuffs the boss very quickly. Then change back to your main weapon.
 
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I think I'm close to the end, having explored most of the map, so now it's safe to say that the DLC was a disappointment.

The boss fights are some of the best From has ever created. The art is phenomenal and better than ever. And they tried hard to create interesting weapons and spells, but…

The DLC ended up being an extension of the worst part of the main game, which was the end, when you have basically completed your build, is OP and locked in the soft cap, not being able to feel any progress anymore. Just like the mantis shrimp thing that used to frighten you in Caelid, but now is too tired to fight, the regular encounters became annoyances and not part of the exploration anymore.

Exploration was the worst thing in this DLC. I’m not the biggest fan of the open world of Elden Ring, but the main game constantly rewards you with a new cave or dungeon, interesting items, enemies and equipment if you explore the area. But this DLC is just empty. Whole areas with nothing to see and nothing to do other than collect a useless grave glovewort. Feels like they released an unfinished product, far from what the envisioned originally, which is not surprising, considering it came out so late.

Not the worst DLC ever, but the worst offering from FromSoftware yet.
 
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AJUMP23

Parody of actual AJUMP23
Made it to some Madness area.....This place sucks. Found a house to church or something in it. Going to explore it soon.
 

DelireMan7

Member
I wat to say that Comm
ander Gaius
is the worst/unfair boss. WTF is that unpredictable hitbox when he arrives.
Haha.

His charge has a bullshit hitbox indeed. All the rest is fine and actually fun to fight against.
But the charge infuriating.
 

Fake

Gold Member
Yeah, using stealth in the madness area is not fun.

Not even belong to a souls game. This is like using forced stealth on CoD/Far Cry games.
 

Bartski

Gold Member
After a thorough scan of the wiki and some casual farming, I'm happy to announce that by the end of my 3rd playthrough I have amassed every single piece of equipment in Elden Ring, which includes 479 armaments and 858 distinct pieces or armor with a double for each alter.

My mother is proud of me and so should you.
 

Kurotri

Member
So what do you guys think of Messmer? I just beat him and to be honest I'm kinda disappointed. It's not that he's particularly hard or easy, that's not it, but something about his fight was just not fun at all. It felt like he had never ending combos and had an answer for everything. Grab attacks, long rage attacks (with the snakes and all), explosions everywhere, it was kind of a mess. I'm still early in the DLC (I think?) but this guy is my first disappointment. Bayle is my favourite so far, especially when you use the NPC summon. CURSE YOU BAYLE!!!

Also as a side note, what's up with the exploration? Or rather, not the exploration itself but the rewards for it. Why am I getting low level smithing stones? You need to beat Mohg to even access this area, at that point you should already be past smithing stones from level 1 to 6 atleast, so yeah...why? And my god I swear I've picked up more cookbooks than I ever did in the base game.

So far the DLC has been amazing, it feels like playing Elden Ring for the first time again and they knocked it out of the park yet again with the art and atmosphere. But I think the base game is still much better. My main complaints so far are dragons, dragons, dragons (outside Bayle of course), the not-so great rewards for your exploration and some bosses being a little too spammy with their moves like Messmer.
 
So what do you guys think of Messmer? I just beat him and to be honest I'm kinda disappointed. It's not that he's particularly hard or easy, that's not it, but something about his fight was just not fun at all. It felt like he had never ending combos and had an answer for everything. Grab attacks, long rage attacks (with the snakes and all), explosions everywhere, it was kind of a mess. I'm still early in the DLC (I think?) but this guy is my first disappointment. Bayle is my favourite so far, especially when you use the NPC summon. CURSE YOU BAYLE!!!

Also as a side note, what's up with the exploration? Or rather, not the exploration itself but the rewards for it. Why am I getting low level smithing stones? You need to beat Mohg to even access this area, at that point you should already be past smithing stones from level 1 to 6 atleast, so yeah...why? And my god I swear I've picked up more cookbooks than I ever did in the base game.

So far the DLC has been amazing, it feels like playing Elden Ring for the first time again and they knocked it out of the park yet again with the art and atmosphere. But I think the base game is still much better. My main complaints so far are dragons, dragons, dragons (outside Bayle of course), the not-so great rewards for your exploration and some bosses being a little too spammy with their moves like Messmer.
Messmer was my favorite boss - ironically, he felt like the most fair boss fight out of them all. His moves are well-telegraphed with plenty of moments to punish, and you can avoid a lot of the flames by staying close. After the initial shock wears off, the snake in the second phase is easy to dodge, too
 

Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
So what do you guys think of Messmer? I just beat him and to be honest I'm kinda disappointed. It's not that he's particularly hard or easy, that's not it, but something about his fight was just not fun at all. It felt like he had never ending combos and had an answer for everything. Grab attacks, long rage attacks (with the snakes and all), explosions everywhere, it was kind of a mess. I'm still early in the DLC (I think?) but this guy is my first disappointment. Bayle is my favourite so far, especially when you use the NPC summon. CURSE YOU BAYLE!!!

Also as a side note, what's up with the exploration? Or rather, not the exploration itself but the rewards for it. Why am I getting low level smithing stones? You need to beat Mohg to even access this area, at that point you should already be past smithing stones from level 1 to 6 atleast, so yeah...why? And my god I swear I've picked up more cookbooks than I ever did in the base game.

So far the DLC has been amazing, it feels like playing Elden Ring for the first time again and they knocked it out of the park yet again with the art and atmosphere. But I think the base game is still much better. My main complaints so far are dragons, dragons, dragons (outside Bayle of course), the not-so great rewards for your exploration and some bosses being a little too spammy with their moves like Messmer.
I actually like Messmer fight, his attack are very deadly, specially his fire attacks but they are easy to read and the way you can avoid them.

At first he seems harder than Malenia because the guy hits MUCH harder but his actual move-sets is much easier to avoid.

If Malenia was the DLC boss with that level of damage....ooooooh boy.

After the initial shock wears off, the snake in the second phase is easy to dodge, too
100% agree with this, his second phase actually becomes much easier to deal with than the first phase.
 
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DaciaJC

Gold Member
Also as a side note, what's up with the exploration? Or rather, not the exploration itself but the rewards for it. Why am I getting low level smithing stones? You need to beat Mohg to even access this area, at that point you should already be past smithing stones from level 1 to 6 atleast, so yeah...why?

This bothered me as well. It doesn't feel like much thought was put into that aspect.
 

Boralf

Member
At first I thought it might be for the new weapons and to upgrade them. But by that point you can probably buy them at Roundtable Hold anyway, so it still doesn't make much sense.
 

Fake

Gold Member
Beat the bonus boss. Mixed about the DLC overall. The exploration is good until you got into places like that stupid stone forest place, some bosses are super cool, but the last boss is fucking generation and not only have a bad lore, but also disturb the base game lore.
The weapons are usual are super cool. After playing Bloodborne DLC I already expecting some really good weapons. Well, until we get repeated versions of the same weapon with make no sense at all to be in the game.

Not much interess of doing ng+ just for the DLC. Still, art direction is masterpiece as common sense standart From Software. Ready for their next game.
 

Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
This bothered me as well. It doesn't feel like much thought was put into that aspect.
I think they thought that not everyone got all bells to unlock all the smiting stones and they didn't want people keep going back old map to grind for smithing stone to upgrade the new weapons.
 

SJRB

Gold Member
This bothered me as well. It doesn't feel like much thought was put into that aspect.

Easy upgrade materials for people who want to experiment with the new DLC weapons.

It's pretty neat how generous the DLC is with (somber) smithing stones.

I'd rather find a somber smithing +6 than yet another goddamn cookbook.
 
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Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
Secret -but non spoiler- tip to tame all the hardest fights in the DLC:

Make a tank build
 

Mozzarella

Member
Just finished this expansion, it was good but the final boss was so bs that it left a bad taste. I'm someone who dont use summons or busted builds and the boss is so overtuned and stupid in the 2nd phase its insane, took me a lot of tries to win, hardest boss in the game by far.

Overall good expansion but i expected better. The Art direction is amazing, some of the bosses are great highlight, the world design is dense but i had many issues with it, some bosses are downright terrible and no fun to fight, a lot of recycled enemies, a lot of barren areas with boring rewards, the ending sucked...etc
Sadly this is not the greatest expansion of all time. I wanted to like it more..
 

DaciaJC

Gold Member
Easy upgrade materials for people who want to experiment with the new DLC weapons.

It's pretty neat how generous the DLC is with (somber) smithing stones.

I'd rather find a somber smithing +6 than yet another goddamn cookbook.

Cookbooks at least let you craft new DLC items. If you've done even a basic amount of preparation for the DLC, then you'll likely already have all the bell bearings to buy as many smithing stones as you could possibly need. Finding them out in the wild in place of a unique or rare reward is deflating, to say the least.
 

FlyyGOD

Member
I'm still waiting for the dlc to get hard on NG+1. It could be that my character is leveled up to 278 . I'm at the Cerulean coast and just beat Dancer Ranah. Does game get much harder ?
 

R6Rider

Gold Member
I'm still waiting for the dlc to get hard on NG+1. It could be that my character is leveled up to 278 . I'm at the Cerulean coast and just beat Dancer Ranah. Does game get much harder ?
Entirely depends on your build. What are you running?
 
Also as a side note, what's up with the exploration? Or rather, not the exploration itself but the rewards for it. Why am I getting low level smithing stones? You need to beat Mohg to even access this area, at that point you should already be past smithing stones from level 1 to 6 atleast, so yeah...why? And my god I swear I've picked up more cookbooks than I ever did in the base game.
This bothered me as well. It doesn't feel like much thought was put into that aspect.
It's kinda interesting when comparing to the base game. I thought base Elden Ring was amazing, but a little too big and too much content for its own good. Lots of repeated bosses and copy + pasted mini-dungeons. I felt like they could have trimmed 30%-40% of them and would be better off with focusing on polishing and more variety for what was left.

They've kinda done that for the expansion, but now I notice a different problem. There's a lot of empty corners in map whereas in the base game they built up the expectation to always find something at every dead-end. I can't tell which one I prefer now because I kinda miss the dopamine hit of encountering another mini-dungeon, consumable, or item in some tucked away place.

It was hard trying to resist the mentality of checking every single corner of the map like I did for the base game. The maps in the expansion basically don't have a whole lot going on outside of the main paths. However, you're always surrounded by extremely pretty scenery, so I just enjoyed the vibe regardless.
 

Cyborg

Member
Can anyone help me to drop me a scavenger's curved sword? I already have one but need another. (ps5)
 
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