What about all the faith-based weapons and spells?
With my second character I’ve been going through as a faith based caster, and I have to say, Lightning does a decent amount of damage to nearly everything. But at the same time, it makes me run out of mana a lot faster than when I was a caster using normal glint-based spells and moonveil.
I have done three different builds. The two I haven’t tried are a pure strength build or pure faith.
Problem with faith/lightning builds, is that they really suffer late game. They are godlike up through capitol, after that they start sucking, just not enough damage scaling. One of the reasons bleed and frost continued to be the best choices, is because they do a percentage of damage when they proc. The more hit points a boss has, the more those kinds of mechanics shine. 10% of a bosses health doesn’t mean much early game, but fire giant on it makes a huge difference in killing speed. Fire giant, god twin duo, maliketh, have been a breeze. The other problem with faith in general, is just about all the toughest mobs in the game are highly resistant to holy damage.
There are so many great things about darkmoon sword:
Yeah, it’s kinda weird how the end game bosses are resistant to holy. You wouldn’t think.
I had a really fun faith build that I loved, that was doing just fine until I got to end game. One of my big pet peeves with ER are the bosses that completely negate entire builds. I think it ultimately makes the game a lot more narrow.
After I’m done with this darksword playthrough, I’m going to install one of those ez-mode mods so I can goof with odd builds and fun to use skills that are otherwise not viable.
In a couple of the older games you could use elemental damage coatings on weapons regardless of their base stats which made it easier to adjust in these cases. They removed doing that because it caused OP damage numbers when abused but IMO they should have changed it so it simply overwrites the damage type of the weapon’s basic attacks with the element used.
They still have the coatings provided you have the crafting recipe and ingredients. What’s more, you can change the damage type provided you have the appropriate whet stone.
So even though I was a strength build I would still swap my weapon to holy with the Ashes of War that allows you to permanently kill skeletons with no chance of resurrection.
Holy weapons also absolutely destroy those death bird bosses.
Yah my problem isn’t with the weapon damage so much, it’s with spells that have no way to change. Stuff that is bread and butter throughout the entire game, become useless endgame.
It’s a game that ultimately forces you to min/max your builds, because mob damage and hit points are so high, that anything less than min/max makes the game even harder.
Ultimately, ER is really a game of ‘git gud’, it’s entirely possible to beat the game with a level one character using the starting club, if you’re really good at mechanics. For us mere mortals that are either too slow, or too bored to want to put that kind of time into the game, pulling the rug out from under you in a build your used to is really punishing. It’s not just changing your build around to fit certain bosses, it’s the loss of all that muscle memory when it comes to timing of skills. My gripe is having 80 hours into getting used to the way my build works, and then having to change it for the toughest fights in the game.
I don’t think builds have to be optimally min/maxed. As with the previous games, weapon upgrades are always a bigger jump in power than levels.
Pump Vigor once you have the stats to use your favorite weapon.
If you want heavy armor and more stamina then put some points into Endurance. You don’t want to fat roll. I beat the entire game med rolling with Radahn’s armor.
That’s pretty much it in terms of all weapon builds.
Coatings are only usable on pure physical damage weapons. If you use an Intelligence or Faith build especially, none of your viable weapons can use them. Same with the weapon buff spells, which largely defeats the point of them existing.
The whestone system does make switching base damage types easier and cheap, which is great. But that also typically changes the scaling. There are cases where it’s better to use ‘suboptimal’ scaling weapons to evade resistances, though.
AKA normal weapons. Non-magical / unique / special in nature. This has been the case throughout the series. No coating your moonlight greatsword in fire bro!
I disagree with your use of “viable” since there is nothing preventing you from using normal weapons in a magic or faith build. Both even pack a lot of enchant weapon spells!
I always use normal weapons regardless of build + 1 special weapon. There’s literally hundreds of options in Elden Ring. It’s an embarrassment of riches.
Modding a game like this or Skyrim is not for me. I can’t even play long enough to finish the base games themselves, let alone get to modding them.
The funny thing is I just popped in here because I found out there is actually gonna be a DLC and I see you and roguefrog talking about playing and I could have sworn you guys were at it when I abandoned ship on this thread like a year ago.
I think I did look up Ranni’s a couple of times just to make sure I was on the right track because sometimes it’s a looong time between signposts, but I recall this being pretty much the most straightforward quest in the game and almost the only one I actually completed.
You are correct. I don’t have a lot of gaming time, and I’ve been in and out of Elden Ring several times. I’ve been out for about 6 weeks now, and I want to jump back in and find Azur’s Comet and the stuff I need to be able to blast it for an extended time. Just because it looks like fun.
I have most of the top of the map unexplored, have just started exploring the world of the Altus Plateu, have not cleared through Caelid or the capital or Volcano Manor or the Mountaintops of the Giants. I’m in no rush, just enjoying exploring. I have no burning desire to “win.”
Ranni’s quest and Selvius’ storyline… It’s brutal to make that misstep and lock yourself out of the magic scorpion charm. That is one I look up EVERY time.
Yeah, that one is easy to miss, because you miss it if you progressed Ranni’s quest too much!
On replay I rolled a magic build and played through most of Limgrave before just putting the game down, at least for a while.
One thing I noticed on a replay, and this is true for all Souls games, is just how much faster I blitz through areas. It’s only the first playthrough where everything might as well be in slowmo.
I am like that as well but with ER I can never remember what stuff comes from what boss, cave or catacomb. Plus your build dictates what you want.
For ER it’s advisable to use the interactive map search from fextralife on replays to find the relevant items your build needs.
Have recently gotten back in to ER after a sabbatical of several months. Tried out a Bandit start with the goal to make an arcane/bleed build around bows and the Reduvia dagger; a path I’d never taken before. DAMN but the Reduvia is amazing! The fact that you can get it so early plus somber stones 1 and 2 to upgrade it - perhaps the easiest time I’ve ever had in the early game, sans cheese, and just stupid fun.
Next up: learn to parry.
Been playing this again for a bit, with the convergence mod…it’s pretty amazing, and does so many things well. If you’re in the mood for a real twist on the game, this is pretty awesome. There are a lot of interesting quality of life changes, and a ton of new spells/weapons etc. It all seems to really keep to the spirit of the original, and is very well done. There are huge changes to the crafting, which makes tweeking builds much better.