Elden Ring: a thread specifically for spoilers

[Scuzz]

I hate bosses that can heal.

[felswoop]

When people say “use bleed,” they’re obfuscating. What they really mean is “use Rivers of Blood and Swarm of Flies.”

Edit: And I don’t mean to imply that will make it “easy.” But that’s what people are using to beat her. It’s the single best way to combat her. Stun with flies, sting with Rivers. Use Co-op to get a DPS caster.

Edit Edit: and Seppuku. Never got that ashes of war myself, but it’s the second most common way to kill her after Flies and Rivers.

[Kolbex]

Fists or GTFO.

I’m thinking I’ll just GTFO.

How much does arcane really affect bleed? I’ve heard “not at all if the weapon doesn’t have arc scaling,” but you can give them arc scaling with whetstones, right? I never have but you can, and surely that makes bleed scale with arc? But how much? The fists are very fast attack weapons, so if the scaling is good it might behoove me to make them blood scaling and redo my build to have a bunch of arcane.

[felswoop]

These mechanics are a black box I haven’t spent the time wiki-ing to fully understand, but I want to say the amount of damage done when you bleed something is affected by arcane? When invaders kill me instantly by brushing up against me with bleed weapons, it’s the only reason I could discern that would happen.

• Arcane increases the amount of [Bleed]

(https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Hemorrhage) buildup on enemies with Weapons that have bleeding on them, resulting in faster Hemorrhage procs. (This only works if the weapon also scales with Arcane).

If you infuse a weapon with bleed or occult, it will scale with arcane, and arcane will then affect the rate of bleed procs.

Apparently it doesn’t affect damage done at all. Bleed is just utterly broken, and kills players instantly in pvp. Cool beans.

[Kolbex]

Thanks, I guess I ought to try leaning into the fists’ inherent advantages (fast attack speed and built in bleed) because lord knows they come with a host of disadvantages.

[felswoop]

If you can’t/don’t want to use the swarm of flies incantation, I would point you towards the pulley crossbow with bleed bolts for hitting her when it’s too dangerous to be near her and drawing aggro away from coop friends or your mimic. It pushed me over the edge to being able to beat her as a “melee” build.

[Kolbex]

Interesting. I have that thing but have never used it. I can probably count the times I’ve shot a bow at someone in this game on one hand.

Or like…in all their games.

[felswoop]

Even DS2?!? Man, I can’t imagine doing that one water level without aggroing enemies without a bow. Maybe they fixed stuff in the Sinner edition or whatever it’s called.

I’m not even sure if you’d need to upgrade the pulley crossbow to get maximum use out of it with bloodbolts. The hard part is buying the bolts. The merchant in the haunted house part Mohgwyn Mausoleum sells them.

[Scuzz]

I couldn’t play without a bow to aggro enemies.

No, the Shrine still sucks. They even added some guys.

[Kolbex]

Shrine of Amana? I think it involved a lot of rolling and using the terrain. I don’t remember it too keenly.

[Matt_W]

@felswoop

These mechanics are a black box I haven’t spent the time wiki-ing to fully understand, but I want to say the amount of damage done when you bleed something is affected by arcane?

Regular damage does scale with arcane when the weapon does.

Bleed “damage” (i.e. the damage done against the enemy’s robustness) is I think fixed. A bleeding weapon that you apply bleed Ash to will have the highest bleed damage, but I don’t think it scales with arcane at all. The fixed nature of this damage is what makes fast, dual-wielded weapons powerful for this kind of build.

The bleed proc (when you’ve done enough bleed damage vs. enemy robustness to cause hemorrhage) does 10-20% of max HP damage. That’s the kicker. only bleed gives a % of max HP. That said Malenia has like 19,000 hit points, so a bleed proc against her gives 1900-3800 points of damage. It takes 4-5 hits to proc and I’m doing like 1100 points of damage per swing with my powerstanced dual curved greatswords. So I’m actually doing more regular damage than damage due to the bleed proc. Strength/dex/arcane scaling matter, even with a bleed build.

[felswoop]

That all makes sense to me. Not sure why when it’s player vs. player it’s an instant kill though.

[Beerbelly_Sneetch]

@Kolbex

Fists or GTFO.

I think this is a very difficult game if you won’t switch up weapons/ ashes/ approach for some bosses. Heck, those overpowered bleed builds run into a brick wall for the last two bosses, which are completely immune to it.

Swarm of Flies, Pulley Crossbow, perhaps a different summon (Black Knife Tiche is much better about dodging Malenia’s attacks, and does tremendous damage). Those will all work. Just trying to outmelee the NPC presented as the best swordsman in the Lands is definitely hard moding the fight.

[Rock8man]

Dual Fists/Claws, Wolverine build is what I’m envisioning a Sekiro build would be in Elden Ring. Maybe. I need to play more Sekiro to be sure.

[Kolbex]

I’ll try the crossbow but actually I have switched up my build tons in the game, although not because of this or that boss but just to try something new. Fists are the most fun for me so far, and I am running out of larval tears, even in theory (I actually have none right now but I remember where one was for sale).

[Kolbex]

There is no such thing as a Sekiro build in ER because the quick block/parry was such an integral part of that game and what made its fights feel like dances, and there’s just no way to replicate that here. Shields are emphatically not the same.

[Rock8man]

Can’t you block with the claws? I know it’s not 100% block. Plus you can take a parry from a shield ashes and put it on the claws, right?

[Kolbex]

I never block with weapons. Just doesn’t even occur to me to do it. But yes, you can. The parry in Souls is very different from the parry in Sekiro. In Sekiro it’s just a better timed block. In Souls it’s al or nothing, you parry and stagger or you eat the full force of the attack.

Actually have tried out a ton of different weapons against her, because I had them and my build allowed me to use them. Fallingstar Beast Jaw, Starscourge Greatsword, Godskin Peeler, Nagakiba+Uchi. Claws. All of them felt pretty much the same in terms of damage output and stagger, honestly.

[felswoop]

What ashes of war are you using on your fists?

[Kolbex]

I hardly ever use them. I changed it up to Bloodhound Step to see if it helped against waterfowl dance (and it did…a little) but before that it was like Beast Roar or something dumb. If I do the bleed respec I’ll probably do like lifesteal fist or something. I doubt seppuku works on fists, although I would absolutely love the animation of me punching myself in the gut.