By exploring the area of north Caelid, I found by chance a somber smithing stone 8 and 9. That’s very high level. I was level 6, I needed a level 7 stone to be able to use the two new stones. They were tempting me, whispering me, knowing I was only missing finding one thing to be able to upgrade 3 times my main weapon. Cue reading the wiki, and cursing my luck because all the places in the game to find a level 7 stone were out of my reach, in late game areas or underground sections where I didn’t have acess. And I didn’t want to jump-skip so much of some parts of the game just to get a stone.
But one of the places I could find a level 7 stone was in the Volcano Manor. I thought, I had access to it, with the death & teleporting trick from the academy. The TLDR is, even with that shortcut, I needed two hours in finding how to use that access to get to a site of grace, by jumping down the lava in one section, exploring it, fighting a boss which was way out of league for me (I needed 5 sleep pots for it, and it was still close), then jumping a ledge for a secret area, running past enemies, etc
Scuzz
3045
The game is a long one. I think I put around 160 hours into my first play thru.
The area north of Liurnia picks up in difficulty, although Caelid can be damn tough.
Ya I was in the high 100’s and felt like I rushed some parts. :) I was waiting for DLC to run through it again, but they seem to be taking their sweet time. Heck they haven’t even announced anything.
Radahan is testing my patience…
Scuzz
3048
Don’t be afraid to summon all the NPCs on the battlefield. I think the fight is designed for them to participate. Also, this is a fight that was at one point made easier and then later returned to its original difficulty.
I love how epic that fight feels. It’s fitting that they needed such a large portion of the whole map in Elden Ring for that fight to work. It’s bonkers in the best way.
I’m doing that, thanks to that I got him up to 15% HP left. But I eventually end up without npcs, I also have to fight him directly a bit. Which is the issue, because he does mortal summersaults while spinning the swords around or some bullshit like that and kills me fast.
I still have to try a few more times. Tomorrow.
JeffL
3051
I admit that I summoned all of the NPCs and tried to dodge and keep my distance and throw as many Rock Slings as I could. When the NPCs were killed, I re-summoned them, and kept hitting him from distance. When he closed on me, I rolled into him and hit him and then summoned Torrent again and repeated. When he got low in HP I did carefully close on him and managed to get lucky enough to take him out with my Moonveil before he could kill me (lucky because I still suck at melee.)
I think you could probably just keep reviving all the NPCs and avoid his attacks and eventually the NPCs would probably take him out.
Ok, I only needed two more tries. Unto Nokron city exploration!
(I just got the mimic tear ashes)
I was able to get the Mimic Tear to max level, and the Archer spirit to almost max level. Thanks to that, i could beat bosses like Black Blade Kindred, the Scarlet Rot Dragon and Astel, Naturalborn of the Void.
However, I’m being ***ed by another boss you have to fight in Ranni’s quest, the Baleful Shadow. Because you can’t summon spirits in that fight lol.
I also got bored of my current halberd and axe and upgraded a colossal sword to spice things up. And upgraded a normal bow as far as I could to have a bit more of ranged options.
Crusis
3054
If you have the Lion’s Claw ash of war, put that on a collosal sword. I found this to be a somewhat easy way to beat Baleful Shadow. The attack can flatten him for a second. I’ve had the most fun in game running colossal swords.
Will that work on sentinel knights?
Crusis
3056
If you mean crucible knights, it works, BUT you can’t repeatedly strike them. They have crazy high poise. It’s best to strike, and then get the hell out of the way. If you have a big shield you can sometimes counter them while one handing a colossal sword. The problem is this requires really high STR and END.
There’s a crucible knight toward the end of the game in Farum Azula that is insanely hard. I managed to beat him down with lion’s claw and kill him in about four hits. I think luck had a lot to do with it. Before I could celebrate too much, I was promptly killed by birds.
I went to Stormveil Castle last night and this morning with this character I have on my Xbox.
Gods, what an amazing place. It’s so beautiful and has such amazing design in terms of giving the player amazing views, provoking the fear of heights in a player, invoking a sense of wonder, putting things just out of reach in ways so that the player has to jump here and then there, and making it seem to the player as if they discovered something that others will miss. There’s just so many factors here. It’s such a masterclass in design. I wonder where they picked up the architectural elements that went into this castle? Seems like a mixture of different European influences. Looks freaking gorgeous.
I also love the touches of how there’s giant holes in the sides of the castle so you just kind of stare at it and try to picture what the heck could have torn holes of that size into the sides of such a huge castle.
I have both, and I had some success with it against B. Shadow, I think I got it near 50% hp?
I left that encounter for now and I’m trying to finish the eastern area, Caelid, before.
A question. One of the things I tried against this boss, in a series of experiments to see if it was especially vulnerable to something, was to try to use some archery at distance against him. Which made me think, how you would even play with an archer build? Some bosses like this one, just automatically sidestep and avoid any ranged projectile. It kinda makes impossible to play as an ‘archer class’, unless I’m missing something.
Scuzz
3059
The Baleful Shadow can be a real pain in the arse. Watch your spacing and counter attack. I had more trouble with him with my strong melee build than I did with my weak melee build. A faster weapon than a halberd might help as well.
There are guys who have done only bow runs which seems almost impossible when you consider how much movement some enemies have. With bows I think from a certain range you can get several arrows off before the enemy reacts. Knives are worse as you need to get closer to use them.
Scuzz
3061
Somebody made a video for DS3 (maybe it was for all DS games) showing the architectural inspirations for many of the areas and buildings. Everything from European castles to Asian ruins. I haven’t seen anything like that for ER.
Crusis
3062
A few enemies are run past worthy. Crabs, crayfish, and freaking crucible knights.
Crucible Knights are so fun to fight against though. At least when I lose. When you get strong enough to beat them, they’re not all that fun anymore. But man, when they’re kicking your ass, they are a blast.
