I will find the next Grace and then go back for the shiny stuff. That way when I die several times it doesn’t bother me.
The Haligtree is the hardest zone in the game by quite a margin. Of course it’s all optional, so that makes sense.
Kinda makes you think what they might do with DLC bosses and areas. In past games they have had the best and toughest boss fights.
So NG+ has been pretty disappointing so far. I haven’t played it in any DS games, so I don’t know how they compare. Basically, it seems like I’m vastly overpowered and don’t understand what the point is. I beat both Margit and Godrik easily within like 30 minutes of starting it and I’m considering whether or not to continue. I may end up shelving the game for a while and maybe start a new game later this year (or whenever DLC is released).
I will say that after playing through the game and watching a bunch of lore videos, the beginning of the game actually makes a lot more sense. That said, there are still plenty of unanswered questions with the story. I’d be willing to bet that future DLC will somehow relate to Miquella somehow.
In my previous game I beat all of the demigods except Malenia. It kind of sucks that you can only see one ending per game (after all, you can just watch them all on Youtube).
We can’t get our obligatory big dragon fight since we’ve already had them.
I assume we’ll get a fight that’s insanely hard, but now with Elden Ring input reading and staggered attacks, and then people will beat it by spamming Weapon Arts at it anyway.
NG+ in DS were actually pretty good. They often had extra enemies and content too.
Elden Ring has literally nothing. Same stuff, enemies are slightly tougher, but as you’ve seen the whole beginning is pretty faceroll easy. Some people say it gets better at the end, some say it sucks until NG+3, others say it always sucks.
It’s weird that something they’ve historically done quite well is less than an after thought to them this time around. They basically just added hit point and damage multipliers and nothing else it seems.
The real option is, as you surmised, to start a new run and do new things. Probably after a break.
For all the dis-like of DS2 Scholar edition, it really has the right idea about NG+. It adds additional enemies and relocates others. So you can’t assume you know where things are.
NG+ in ER is really easy until the last third of the game when you get to the tougher bosses anyway. If you decide to stop you could always collect items for when the DLC comes out.
To be fair, Elden Ring is at least double the base play time of Dark Souls and co, really an absurd amount of content, so for the most part I forgive them for not doing a good job with NG+. Except for the part where they technically want you to do it to see all the endings. If you’re not going to design the game to scale and maintain interest properly through NG+, then you should make it possible to see all the endings in one playthrough without save file manipulation.
On PC you can via manual saves. I guess on consoles you don’t have that option.
It is done
(I used the Rivers of Blood sword that I read it was especially good against her, but I wonder if I could have done it with my usual build, with a bit of patience).
ok: I’m on the Elden Beast fight. This is it.
117 hours played, level 177.
Congrats, she is probably the toughest boss in the game. What with her having the waterfowl attack I think any weapon is legit against her.
I’m pretty sure this will be a piece-of-cake for you after beating Malenia.
Yes, he is bad ass. And you have to do it solo.
This might have been patched out, but when I defeated Alecto, I stood on a specific rock that they have a hard time attacking.
Commander Niall was hands down the hardest boss for me. I was probably under levelled and just kept trying until I beat him instead of coming back later.
Oh shit, you jinxed it.
I still haven’t beat it after 1 hour of tries. :/
A new day always makes you play better.
First, after two tries:
Almost!
One or two more attempts…
Done.
And as extra, I could kill Alecto on the first try now. By making him move near the border of the circle, he seemed to be able to avoid less my lion’s roar move.
So, 119 hours played in total.
I will clarify, it has been this many hours because I did… everything. I have done all the key bosses, all the mini dungeons and their bosses, all the optional or secret areas, all the field bosses and all the elite enemies in the open world that I could find. Hell, there were some enemies that could be easily bypassed by walking 25 feet away, even then I marked the place to kill them when I was ready.
Ironically it has been “only” 119 hours because I playe modded from the fourth day onwards, with a mod to not lose the runes when dying. I’m sure I would have needed 20 or 25 hours more without the mod to play the same content.
I’d like at some point (not this year…) to maybe try some magic run, but honestly looking at videos, the combat using magic seems pretty clunky, or the magic spell “auto-aim” to the target or the manual aiming system is damn clunky, you also have to interact more with the interface switching around between spells in the middle of combat, it’s one area where I could imagine being better with mouse and keyboard, if they gave a damn and improved the pc controls.
Magic is doable and fun, but you still require melee skills. I don’t think I ever properly min-maxed my set up though as I couldn’t get near the results from some spells as others on YouTube got. And against the quick bosses I don’t think I could have succeeded without a good spirit ash.
Congrats on beating the game. I think my first run, which was almost complete, was about 180 hours. And in my second run I found new things.
Finally finished.
186 hours. Level 180. Completionist: all questlines, endings and achievements + some multiplayer shenanigans’. Only a little grinding in order to gain a level when close to the required runes. I “think” I killed all the bosses and even mini-bosses except the 3 Tree Spirits in the Ashen capital near the Erd Tree+2 talisman. Because fuck that I already killed a dozen of you floppy worm losers.
I think there were only a handful of bosses that took me multiple tries. The vast majority were one and done.
Margit, Radahn, Valiant Gargoyles, Malenia, Cleric Beastman, and the last boss, especially including that cosmic fairy water dinosaur. What a royal pain in the ass in melee.