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.
heh heh heh
I think FromSoft sometimes struggles to come up with satisfying final bosses. OR: Sekiro just might be too high of bar.
I enjoyed Old Battle Axe/Bloody Tulkas more than the last boss. And Morgoth…err Morgott as the mid-to-late game boss. Also the Clergy Beastman was a good challenge as the antepenultimate boss. I managed to perfect dodge roll through his entire long winded and crazy spiral special before finishing him off.
If you didn’t use a guide I would bet you missed something. Probably nothing important, some little cave or mine somewhere. I have played over 500 hours now and I still find little things.
My first play through I went into NG+ to get the one item I needed to 100% the game. I was sure I had done everything, and I missed things I found in my second play through.
The re-use of certain bosses is perhaps the worst thing in the game. Kinda like they ran out of ideas. It will be interesting to see how fresh the enemies and bosses are in the DLC.
OK - I took a break from getting killed by Astel in the Ranni quest, wanted to go back and get that Somber Smithing Stone in the middle of the Lake of Rot. I accidentally raised the platforms that it appears it is on. I have no idea how to get up those platforms now. Going back to a point of grace did not lower them.
Rather than run around and get rot non-stop, how do I get up those now?
EDIT: NVM accidentally found it! If anyone else gets stuck, ask and I can tell you.
I want to give a special shoutout to Giant Hunt, even with my the first two-hander great sword. That Ash of War was so fun to use, I just straight up used it for the rest of the game!
The animation was thus that you could duck under several attack animations, most notably the Crucible Knights sword thrust. This thing eats Crucible Knights for breakfast.
It also launched enemies up into the air which was hilarious, and they would fall back down on to the ground and they would still need to get back up again…making it often times repeatable or allow you to mix it up with a charged R2 to meet them right when they get back on their feet. The stagger damage alone is incredible.
Ladder.
I think the new patch made weapons like that better as well.
I guess it doesn’t really matter.
I am just continuing the tradition from Demon’s Souls in terms of my chosen weapon. The first greatsword possible is my weapon for the entire run!
In Demon’s Souls it was the Bastard Sword.
In Dark Souls it was the now overly glorified Claymore.
In Elden Ring it was…Lordsworn’s Greatsword…I’ll take it!
For prep for NG+ after I 100% the game I did consult the WIKI for a deep dive.
As of now I missed three dungeons. THREE. That’s it. Yeah, and they were all I would consider out of the way if I may say so myself. Maybe discoverable if I doubled back or didn’t skip snow.virus.exe.
There is one dungeon though. How the hell do people find that one unless they are combing the map incessantly?
The dungeon to the right as you enter the snow area is one I missed the first time.
This takedown of Malenia is a work of art.
What weapons and spells was he using??
According to the video description:
NG+7t
Weapons
Zweihander +25 / Halo Scythe +0 / Lusat’s Glintstone Staff +10
Spells
Carian Piercer / Cannon of Haima / Rock Blaster
Talisman
Green Turtle Talisman / Carian Filigreed Crest / Primal Glintstone Blade / Great-Jar’s Arsenal
Flask
Greenburst Crystal Tear
I think that’s the Carian Magic Sword (something like that), but I don’t know what the other “tossed” spell is. But it doesn’t matter because without being really really good you couldn’t use them like him.
Also the Ash of War on the Zweihander +25 is Giant Hunt which tosses enemies into the air. The other weapons I think are special and have a fixed ability.
He beat here like the proverbial red-headed step child. The tossed spell was the Cannon of Haima, which is great against groups.