2706

Same for me, but I just ran into an enemy that drains mana on hit, resulting in me not being able to “bell” summon allies. So while in that area, I reconfigured to get some mana.

2707

Yes. it won’t save you from dying off a big cliff but it will save you on the mid-range fall. Much better than the cotton. The equivalent of the DS cat ring probably.

2708

So, to use the ashes of war for upgrades, you need to hit a scarab on the road going away from Stormfront Ruins. In my current playthrough, I got there, and was ambushed by a guy on a horse, and returning there, there is no scarab.

So…no ashes for me?

2709

Excellent. Thanks @Scuzz.

I guess it doesn’t make sense for it to let you fall a really, really long distance, since that would presumably be game map breaking, letting you end up in all sorts of places which the developers hadn’t intended to allow players to go.

2710

I’m not altogether sure I’m understanding you, but there are certain scarabs that will drop Ashes of War, they show up in a variety of places but aren’t very common. There’s also a bunch of vendors that sell Ashes of War and you can get them in chests and IIRC you can also get them as drops (rare and might only be on bosses and min-bosses).

[Edit] I forgot about an item needed to use Ashes of War as specified by @Outlandish in the next post below.

Once you have an Ashes of War and the item specified by @Outlandish, you should have an Ashes of War option when you rest at the Grace Points that will let you change Ashes of War on any weapons.

2711

You’ll need a whetstone knife to make ashes work. You should find one quite early.

You say the scarab hadn’t come back. Did you rest before you went back? I’ve always had scarabs return after resting.

2712

I didn’t rest no. I got killed and plunged straight back in, I assumed starting again after a death qualified as a rest…

2713

Scarabs always respawn, you can’t miss out on anything. Maybe try a different time of day or reload the area by resting at nearest bonfire.

2714

I believe the item you need is down a staircase in the middle of the Stormgate Ruins.

2715

Hmmm…Mass killing in order then.

2716

It’s the scarab near the three guys around the fire at the start of the bridge. Make sure the horseman isn’t involved though 😉

2717

I configured my controller in the Xbox accessory app so that one of the paddles is crouch (and made Lclick null) and another is target lock (and made Rclick null), to make things a bit cleaner. That works fine. What I can’t figure out is whether it’s possible to, say, separate the sprint and the dodge functions so that I can leave dodge on B and put sprint on a paddle? Doesn’t seem so? I can’t even get the paddles to show up as configurable in the in-game configuration menu, I have to use a profile from the app.

2718

To be as vague as possible, there’s arenas in the world of Elden Ring. They look circular on the map and even have audiences. They look empty but you can use them to get into these battles. At first I got my ass whupped so bad I thought they weren’t for me. I wasn’t ready yet. But then I found an arena on the Southern Peninsula and thought, well, even things that seem tough in the Southern Peninsula haven’t been too tough. So I tried it out, and I’m glad I did. It took a few deaths, but I learned when to strike, when to dodge, and when to block with the shield. And when to go for broke with my magic spells. It was a really fun battle, so I would recommend the arena battles.

Once I won that one, I went back to the arena nearer to where you first start, and though it’s a harder fight, I’ve almost managed to win that one several times last night.

The reward I got for the first fight was so good, I imagine the time and effort to win this one will be worth it as well.

So I recommend the arena fights! They’re not as tough as they first appear to be.

2719

I attempted the dude in the Impaler’s Catacombs about 100 times before giving up. Then I made another run at the Leonine Misbegotten and got my ass carved off, barbecued, eaten, shat out, and handed back to me. Now I’m making runs at Margit. Margit seems to go down easy until about 50% health, then becomes utterly impenetrable. I can still dodge his attacks and get hits in, but he never goes below 50%. Also, the people I summon to help are not really much help.

2720

I’m convinced the best summons in the game comes from one of these battles. I just acquired it this morning and it’s incredible. I immediately used all my resources to level it up to +10 and it’s just… bonkers. I thought the Mimic was supposed to be broken good (it never did much for me, which I was telling @ShivaX just last night) but this one is…/chef’s kiss.

2721

I didn’t have trouble with Leonine. I had lots of trouble with Impaler’s Catacombs though. Fighting so many enemies on top of the boss is what makes it tricky. Do you have any way of getting rid of the small enemies fast? I used my arc spell to hit multiple enemies at once. Do you have anything like that?

2722

Haha, well I can make myself available for a try!

2723

You can also pick ‘Use Selected’ instead of ‘Use’ to use multiples of the same item. It still closes after but if you know you need to use 2 or 3 runes of that type it speeds things up some.

2724

“Use selected” is such an egregiously bad term, which I know is preserved from previous DS games, but in Bloodborne it was “use multiple,” which actually makes sense in English.

2725

Wow. Thank you. I do love this game, but it’s just so…opaque. I feel like Soulsborne games in general would have a much more difficult time existing if it weren’t for the internet. Although it also reminds me of the original NES Zelda, which also had cryptic hints to stuff you wound up just looking up in a players guide or something.