Elden Ring

[Ruki]

1 hour ago, RPS said:

So I have purposefully not looked at strategy guides or tips, but I'm level 38 and I still only have my first two spells - Glintstone Pebble and Arc. Is this normal? I feel I should have more. I have 5 summons (rat, wolves, jellyfish, spores and knights). Pebble and Arc are fine but I absolutely know that there are stronger spells out there...

I found a few spells, it's not far from the starting area. You have to beat a boss to get to the npc. But the two spells I picked up from her were ehh. I want some Hyperbeam shit!

Alternatively, where can I find a new staff? I basically have all of my original starting gear (got a new shield, and some medium armor I picked up from the gatefront ruins.... it doesn't really suit my being a mage thing)

[gunnar hendershow]

Regarding new spells and armor I've had a lot more luck with the spells than I have the armor. A ton of weapons I can't use? Easy. Armor that actually improves my build? Well I found nice boots.

[RPS]

2 hours ago, Ruki Returns said:

I found a few spells, it's not far from the starting area. You have to beat a boss to get to the npc. But the two spells I picked up from her were ehh. I want some Hyperbeam shit!

Alternatively, where can I find a new staff? I basically have all of my original starting gear (got a new shield, and some medium armor I picked up from the gatefront ruins.... it doesn't really suit my being a mage thing)

What boss?

Last night I cheeses tree sentinel and whooped his ass. I'm pretty over powered magic wise but I struggle health wise. 

[Ruki]

1 hour ago, RPS said:

What boss?

Last night I cheeses tree sentinel and whooped his ass. I'm pretty over powered magic wise but I struggle health wise. 

Pumpkin Head. You'll fine it in some ruins south east of the gate front ruins... follow the road across the bridge and it's in the hills.

[King Ellis]

Or you can get Lance Henriksen to dig him up.

[Dang117]

I just beat Margit and got to the roundtable, that was a fun challenge, took me a few attempts mainly due to me not reading his attack patterns properly especially stage 2.

[gunnar hendershow]

@apsham That pointer about summoning the wolves *just* as I was finishing off phase 1 of the Rennala fight worked. She got off zero summons in phase 2.

Not sure where to go next, just wandering around. I absolutely have to play more conservative and when I have close to enough runes to level up or buy something nice take a step back and farm. Lost a total of 20,000 in runes through mishaps last night as I forged ahead when I absolutely should not have.

[Ruki]

Tree Sentinel only gives 3200 runes?!

[Schlitzbrille]

One day I'll stop with the speedrun spam.

 

Also same guy 

 

 

[gunnar hendershow]

I kinda feel bad because there are so many playstyles but I'm basically only using a handful of spirit ashes and ashes of war. One sword with bleed, a bow to keep myself safe, and a fairly balanced magic attack. I know I could be a bruiser with a colossal sword or a super fast dual-wielder or so many other things.

Ah well, guess that's incentive to replay at some point.

I think I've cleared the early/maybe some of the mid game. Most everything is done in Limgard and Raya Lucaria. Excited to see how much more I have left.

[apsham]

2 hours ago, damhausen said:

I kinda feel bad because there are so many playstyles but I'm basically only using a handful of spirit ashes and ashes of war. One sword with bleed, a bow to keep myself safe, and a fairly balanced magic attack. I know I could be a bruiser with a colossal sword or a super fast dual-wielder or so many other things.

Ah well, guess that's incentive to replay at some point.

I think I've cleared the early/maybe some of the mid game. Most everything is done in Limgard and Raya Lucaria. Excited to see how much more I have left.

New Game + is a great time to experiment. You're quite overleveled for most of it because the scaling isn't too harsh yet and you have a lot of items from your last playthrough. You can rush to the point of respeccing pretty fast too or do if before you start.

[King Ellis]

After 100 hours (!) I think I'm finally approaching the end as Melina gave me a bit of a 'no turning back' check. There's still stuff left for me to do though, can I still warp back to the rest of the map after this?

Spoiler

This is after beating the Fire Giant and going across the chain to the giant goblet thing that has some magma at the bottom. It sounds like I'm going to sacrifice her in order to burn the tree down?

 

[apsham]

1 hour ago, King Ellis said:

After 100 hours (!) I think I'm finally approaching the end as Melina gave me a bit of a 'no turning back' check. There's still stuff left for me to do though, can I still warp back to the rest of the map after this?

  Reveal hidden contents

This is after beating the Fire Giant and going across the chain to the giant goblet thing that has some magma at the bottom. It sounds like I'm going to sacrifice her in order to burn the tree down?

 

You're kind of at the first point of no return. A world changing event will happen, but you're not locked into going straight to the ending. Even after the second event and you finish the game, you'll end the game - but you don't have to start NG+ right away, the game allows you to go to the Roundtable Hold and start it when you see fit.

[gunnar hendershow]

Oh death blight was an interesting mechanic to run into. 

[gunnar hendershow]

My normal play style in RPGs like this (think Skyrim, Witcher III, etc) is to put an early focus on melee attacks. Then once more powerful spells become available I adapt and become a punishing caster with enough melee ability to deal damage when they close in on me.

Realizing at this point in the game they do a ton to restrict you from making that strategy viable. It's clear that if I just put 100% into becoming a lethal caster that I'd be much stronger (especially since I have Meteorite Staff), or vice versa 100% into strength and dexterity. It really forces you to choose early, but fortunately I can respec if I must. I have a hunch late game it flips back a bit once the most powerful weapons and weapon upgrades are available. It's just been turning mid-game into a slog as I don't have enough power to beat some of the tougher enemies since I'm kind of brittle due to trying to balance my stats when I've leveled up.

[DMN in the House]

Finally picked this up, running vagabond with sword and shield, although sometimes I go to a polearm, that worked against the beast man.

I always got discouraged with Soulsbournes, but I'm having fun. The sword and board combat is good, although I haven't faced many bosses yet.

[RPS]

20 hours ago, damhausen said:

My normal play style in RPGs like this (think Skyrim, Witcher III, etc) is to put an early focus on melee attacks. Then once more powerful spells become available I adapt and become a punishing caster with enough melee ability to deal damage when they close in on me.

Realizing at this point in the game they do a ton to restrict you from making that strategy viable. It's clear that if I just put 100% into becoming a lethal caster that I'd be much stronger (especially since I have Meteorite Staff), or vice versa 100% into strength and dexterity. It really forces you to choose early, but fortunately I can respec if I must. I have a hunch late game it flips back a bit once the most powerful weapons and weapon upgrades are available. It's just been turning mid-game into a slog as I don't have enough power to beat some of the tougher enemies since I'm kind of brittle due to trying to balance my stats when I've leveled up.

How do you respec? 

[apsham]

7 minutes ago, RPS said:

How do you respec? 

After a particular boss fight (the second great Rune you normally would receive on a standard playthrough) - the boss stays around and you can give them an item to respec - so you can do it a limited number of times, but it's possible to get one of those items in the first area of the game if you know where to look.

[probablyoliver]

11 minutes ago, apsham said:

After a particular boss fight (the second great Rune you normally would receive on a standard playthrough) - the boss stays around and you can give them an item to respec - so you can do it a limited number of times, but it's possible to get one of those items in the first area of the game if you know where to look.

You also get a bunch of that specific item a couple areas past that boss. I think I've got, like, 7 or 8 in my inventory now.

[RPS]

8 minutes ago, apsham said:

After a particular boss fight (the second great Rune you normally would receive on a standard playthrough) - the boss stays around and you can give them an item to respec - so you can do it a limited number of times, but it's possible to get one of those items in the first area of the game if you know where to look.

Cool. I'm not really at this stage doing the story just zipping along the map. I think I'm gravitating towards not loving the game because I'm 20 hours in and its way too opaque. I think if they scaled the size down it would be more interesting. But I encounter so much that is useless given my build. I have so many weapons, none of which I can use given my stats. I haven't found a single spell I can use given my current stats. I have found lots of summons, but they are so limited to be interesting. I guess I could look at a guide online but that seems anti what the game is about. I could respec but I would have to find that and also... I'm cruising through most bad guys with my current spells but I would like stronger or different ones....