1943

Wiki it. Really, see where they are and go after it. The limitations on upgrade materials are such that you should feel okay about it.

1944

You are only 41, you have lots of time. ;)

1945

I tried says I donā€™t have anything to repent for.

1946

OMG the two crucible knights in Auriza Heroā€™s Grave. Is that battle as insanely hard for you as it was for me? That dungeon sucks, then you finally get to the boss battle and they just wiped the floor with me. After many tries, brought in human summons to help, and this guy, brilliant fighter, but he died 3/4 way through. We were battling for nearly 10 minutes at this point, and I felt bad he went through all that trouble just to die. Figured I was next, but by some miracle, after burning through every shred of HP and scraping the bottom of my mana, I finally finished the second one off with my last dose of Renallaā€™s Full Moon. Iā€™m sweating and exhausted, so Iā€™m wondering if this was a tough battle for anyone else lol.

Wanted to return the favor, now Iā€™m helping others with it.

1947

Selia cavern?

1948

It was probably the easiest ā€œmark with a skull and GTFOā€ so far in the game :)

1949

So it finally occurred to me Iā€™m powerful enough to take on all of these dragons the game has laying around and Iā€™m living it up, getting those dragon hearts. Something something dragon communion, whatever. Then I decide to look up this cathederal. And I meet Decaying Ekzykes. Hoo boy. Anyway, I finally best him and now Iā€™ve got all of these choices for dragon-related incantations and I canā€™t decide. Anyone got advice on how best to spend those sweet, sweet, dragon hearts? Based on his bad, bad, I mean horrible breath, Iā€™m leaning toward picking up Ekzykesā€™s Decay but I have, I think, 8 hearts now. And it doesnā€™t seem like any of them demand more than Faith in the low 20s and Arcane in the teens. I could easily respect and play around.

So whatā€™s the verdict; are these for show or are they well and truly powerful incantations?

1950

I absolutely hate the Crucible Knights even solo so I havenā€™t even tried to find that place. No thank you

I havenā€™t used any of them but I remember people saying the rot one in particular was very good for Radahn, if you havenā€™t beaten him yet. Although given the way you are talking you probably have.

1951

I have tried using the rot one but getting the timing right to use it was tough. I got punished most the time, but when I did get it off it worked pretty good.

1952

The Knights arenā€™t even the worst part. Itā€™s the damn chariot maze.

1953

Absolute nightmare of a fight. Itā€™s awful. I wanted a coop partner there so bad but nobody showed up to the party. Youā€™re doing godā€™s work.

Honestly? Theyā€™re all good. Every last one. As far as the best ones:

Dragonclaw is most useful in regular combat, has infinite(?) hyper armor, deceptive range and you can use it twice in a row. Dragonmaw does more damage but is more awkward to use.

Rot breath and frost breath are the best generic breath spells, and will melt just about everything if you can get em off.

The legendary breath spells are all similar in that you can use them while in midair. Itā€™s an absolute blast, and not necessarily that goodā€¦ but I like them. You feel like a real badass pulling them off.

Not sure if all the legendary ones work like this, but theodrixā€™s magma breath combos. Meaning, I could blast something with it, quick swap to dragonclaw, and use that ignoring some of the startup casting time that it would usually take.

Greyollā€™s roar is also good, big aoe that does damage and lowers the damage of enemies hit by it by 20%! Uses a ton of fp though.

Like I said, theyā€™re pretty much all good! The one you get from a certain dragonlord makes you into a true boss.

1954

Thanks for the Dragon feedback everybody. Iā€™m going to respec in enough faith and arcane to use those and a couple of weapons Iā€™ve been meaning to try. (I greatly appreciate how easy the game makes it to do multiple respecs.)

Iā€™ve simply had the most amazing morning. Never mind that Iā€™ve already got over 150 hours on my current, best character alone and Iā€™ve done a lot of spoiling myself. After sort of stumbling on the Dragon cathedral based on seeing places in the map that are probably buildings or ruins Iā€™ve not yet explored I expanded the adventure to Altus Plateau. (First still in Caelid I stumbled upon a cool cave (Gaol) Iā€™d never even heard of.).

I knew there was a church in Altus Iā€™d not yet found and I wanted the Tear. I picked out on the map where I thought it should be and as I got closer I again saw that huge statue feature I had never made my way to. In all I got the church, two graveyards, and that cool ā€˜heroes graveā€™ under the statue. Fought a few bosses I hadnā€™t met, got a bunch of cool drops (inc my 2nd legendary summons ash, the dragon knight), and that dungeon has a feature that was new to me, how you must lure shadow mobs over to a bright seal on the floor).

Anyway, it was so incredible to me I could still be so surprised, find some much Iā€™d yet to uncover, and I was especially proud that I cleared two entire dungeons without reading spoilers!

Edit to add: also found my new favorite random, silly bit of fun. Electric sheep.

1955

I think itā€™s cool that JP started this as a total souls noob, and now heā€™s talking about how he beat the two crucible knights. That fight was rough.

1956

I did a similar chariot puzzle in Gelmir Heroā€™s Grave. Ugh.

1957

All the heroes graves are kind of a pain, i think the ones with the lights, and shadows are the worst, you have to fight so much that its time consuming when you die. All of the chariot ones have some sort of trick, to either dissabke the chariots, or utilize them by riding on top.

1958

Man, three connection errors in a row out of five attempts to co-op Malekith. I have no idea how From managed to shit the bed so bad with the multiplayer in this one. Iā€™ve never had a single problem (other than the ever-present lag, of course) with MP in another of their games but this one is just awful.

1959

Also I really want my fist build to work, and it does against normal enemies, but after several frustrating false starts against Malekith I caved and tried my Nagakiba+Uchigatana build and put him down first try. It was quite anticlimactic, actually. The spastic bosses and their wonky lock on points (Malekith in particular has a lock on in the middle of his body, but itā€™s suspended above the ground and is impossible to hit with fists) make a weapon with basically zero range like the fists a dicey proposition.

1960

Bloodhoundā€™s step + sorcery is pretty fun.

1961

All the dragon heart choices for me so far require a Faith level so high Iā€™ll never get there. Hopefully there will be some in the future that require low faith and arcane.

1962

The part of game design I know the least about (of the known unknowns, at least) is netcode and online functionalityā€¦ Since Elden Ring operates peer to peer, whatā€™s Fromā€™s excuse for all the disconnects? Anyone have any insight?

You might have already fought him by now, but the next big boss is definitely one I think you should try with your fists! Heā€™s one of the very few bosses in the game that works better in melee, and without spoiling anything, it would be very thematic to beat him up with the old fisticuffs.

A fatrolling pyromancer with a birdbath on his head and bloodhounds step is my favorite style of play thus far.

Are you on an arcane focused build?