Cromagnum said:

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Blasphemous blade is still the best weapon in the game by far. I want to use Euporia but it's one of the very last things you get.

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Finally got Euporia, and guess what? It's dog **** like almost every other DLC weapon. Back to BB.

Finally beat the final boss (took a break after last weekend partially as a palette cleanser and partly forced on me because of the hurricane). Great experience all around, well worth the money.

Still deciding if I want to revisit, but for now will give a few other games some shots. Otherwise, always excited for whatever From has for us in the future.

Not sure how far I am from the end. Clearing everything I can before going into shadow keep. Playing a milady build and probably will stick with it until done. Plan is to go into NG+ afterwards and try out all the new playstyles then.

Love this game so much. By far my favorite game of all time.

Finally killed the final boss of the DLC without any spirit summons... damn. That was a freaking hard fight.

I don't know, but he may have just unseated Sword Saint Isshin as the hardest Soulsborne boss. He made Malenia look like a chump.

Great DLC and definitely brutal. I don't think i'm going to try that final boss again without spirit summons. I think that took me around 6 hours of failure to finally kill.

What the actual ****!?!?!?

I just ruined my shorts.

...was that the Nameless King?

WTF, Fromsoft?! Give the other game studios a freaking chance!

Really, this should probably get its own thread. There's a freaking Firekeeper in the trailer as well as the Nameless King. What is going on?!?!

bringing this to the top. I started this a couple years ago and it didnt click so I set it aside. Just picked it back up and am enjoying it. started as a vagabond and I'm wanting to build a paladin. any pointers?

Oh, I am always down for Elden Ring talk!

First and foremost: HAVE FUN! Don't listen to gatekeepers or anyone saying you're playing wrong.

ETA: I forgot to originally provide two HUGE recommendations:

• Exhaust dialogue with EVERY NPC. They will stop talking and newbies think they're done. You should always keep talking to every NPC until they start repeating themselves.
• Keep a journal to track quests and NPCs. There is no in game quest log and some of the rewards for NPC quest lines are top items in the game. It's easy to miss many or not progress the quests. Look for clues in what they say. Many of these quest lines span the entire game.

In the early levels (Limgrave, Weeping penninsula, Liurnia) your attribute point allocation isn't going to hurt you too much, so play around with everything and find weapons you enjoy. There is a way to respec later, so don't worry about trying new things. You get around 18 or so respecs per playthrough.

Ultimately, attribute point allocation will become very important in mid or late game. If you have poor allocation you will be making the game harder on you. I always explain them this way:

Vigor: Always a good choice. First soft cap is at 40 vigor. The next hard cap is at 60 vigor.
Mind: Only enough to cast what you need to. You also have your cerulean flasks, so this is really just how the build feels to you. I don't really play classes that use a lot of FP, so I don't usually invest much here.
Endurance: Enough to wear what you want to wear without fat rolling. You only really need enough stamina to hit several times then roll out. You don't need enough stamina to swing a greatsword 10 times... no one is swinging that much.
Str/Dex/Int/Fai/Arc: Starting out, I would just worry about enough of these to use the weapons, incantations, or spells you like. These won't start really scaling your damage until your weapons are upgraded to around +15 for normal weapons or +5 for somber weapons. You're better off investing in more vigor while in the early game.

What really ramps up your damage the most is upgrading your weapons with smithing stones. There are a finite number of those in the world to pick up. Certain mobs can also be farmed. Eventually, you will find Bell Bearings to give to the finger husk maidens in the roundtable hold so you can buy all smithing stones aside from the final ones. There is a limited number of those in each playthrough. Both of the somber and regular variety.

Point being, don't be afraid to spend these in the early game to find weapons you enjoy.

Attribute points affect your weapon damage through Affinities. When you look at your weapon's stats, you will see the affinities. There are minimum requirements and scaling. For example, a sword may require a minimum of 10 strength and 16 dex to wield. Then you look at the Scaling. The higher the letter, the better the scaling of that specific attribute. So, if a sword as a C scaling in Dex and a D scaling in Str, you get more damage per point of Dex than point of Str. As you upgrade weapons, their affinity scaling can also increase from D to C, or C to B, etc. You can also change the affinities of a weapon with whetsones.

This is all much deeper stuff I wouldn't worry too much about for now, but it is how you affect late game damage scaling.

Feel free to ask questions as you play. I love hearing about new players experiencing elden ring for the first time.

When I originally started it, I was coming off of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom. The difference in movement abilities frustrated me so I set it down for a couple of years. Finally talked myself into giving it another shot after being in Crimson Desert since it launched. Really glad I did. It is a great game.
This weekend I got to grind on it pretty heavy. Currently around 30 hours into it.
Current stats:
Vigor: 20
Mind: 20
Endurance: 20
Strength: 20
Dexterity: 14
Intelligence: 9
Faith: 18
Arcane: 7

Current equipment:
Armor: Godrick Knight Full Set with Great helm
Shield: Brass Shield +4
Weapon: Lordsworn Straight Sword +5 sacred blade ash of war
Have a Claymore I am building as well if I want to go the greatsword route later.
Using the Blessed Dew Talisman
Incantations: Heal, Lightning bolt, Fire sling

I went and fought Margit. Got wiped out and have been grinding since. I want to melt him down the next time I face him. I've done excursions into Caelid (that place is creepy) it reminds me of Dathomir on Jedi Fallen Order. Have also ventured as far as the Academy. But have not gained entry yet. Mainly doing dungeons and quests in Limgrave and Stormhill etc right now. Having a blast.

Looking at your stats, are you going some sort of hybrid STR/FAI build?

Yep. Going for lots of holy damage and melee damage while being able to tank incoming. I figure I can mix flame or bleed or freeze build into that set up pretty easily if I want to.

Been a while since I played, but I am pretty sure there are some pretty solid Str/Fai weapons. I believe one of them has a really nice AOE ability for farming runes that I used to level up quite a bit mid-late game

As a newbie, I would get that vigor to about 25 before tackling margit, again. I generally want that as my highest stat.

Honestly, your stats are perfectly fine for beating Margit. Your sword is plenty high enough to do so, as well. One thing to note about leveling up your shield. Someone may need to check my work on this, but I think the only benefit to improving a shield with smithing stones is the increase to your guard counters. Leveling up your shields does NOT increase the amount it blocks, so i wouldn't spend too many stones doing that.

There is a talisman in the game for increasing guard counter attacks, which you SHOULD be using, if you want to use a shield.

As I said before, you should play this game however is most fun for your, so anything I type, just take as a suggestion and not me telling you it's the only way.

I would suggest not trying to brute force your way through Margit. Your level is perfectly in sync with that encounter. The purpose of Margit should be viewed as a "skill check". Basically, have you learned the basic mechanics of the game. Anyone can overlevel and then smash margit. Eventually, you will encounter bosses (in the late mid-game and end-game) that are basically tuned to the point that you can't just overlevel yourself. At least, not to the same degree.

I would go back to margit and see if you can learn the encounter and learn to use the various mechanics. Marget is not difficult to stagger, so learn that. Try to avoid R1 spamming and use other mechanics. What could those be? With a shield and sword build, guard-counters are super powerful. I never play with a shield. I prefer to power-stance weapons of two-hand weapons. But, if you are going to use a shield, you need to be guard countering. It's just such a powerful mechanic to not use.

You can legitimately beat the entire game with the Lordsword Straightsword. It has a 110 crit scaling, which makes it great for critical attacks, and I believe it scales naturally with Str and Dex. You should be looking to stance break enemies with guard-counters, jumping heavy attacks, and normal attacks. When you stance break, you need to get that critical off because you will do good critical damage.

In between all of that, you learn to dodge and not dodge backwards. As you get better at FromSoft games, especially the newer ones, you will learn to start dodging left, right, forward, and such. Many enemies will have attacks that will catch you if you start panic rolling backward.

Now, the Claymore is a beloved weapon across all Souls games, and Elden Ring is no different. It comes with Lion's Claw, which does fantastic stance damage. You can lion's claw spam the **** out of Margit and stance break him to hell. Also, the Thrusting attack does extra counter damage. That's a hidden damage mechanic that does extra damage for all thrusting attacks when an enemy is in the process of attacking.

I forgot to add I've got my lone wolf spirit summons upgraded I think 2 levels as well.

AgBQ-00 said:

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bringing this to the top. I started this a couple years ago and it didnt click so I set it aside. Just picked it back up and am enjoying it. started as a vagabond and I'm wanting to build a paladin. any pointers?

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You are playing it wrong. You should abandon this game now. It's not worth it.

Good thing about this being my first ever souls game...I don't know what playing it right means. LOL. It is a TON of fun though.

AgBQ-00 said:

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Good thing about this being my first ever souls game...I don't know what playing it right means. LOL. It is a TON of fun though.

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I enjoyed it until I didn't. Good luck.

Margit and Godrick down. this game is a BLAST!

AgBQ-00 said:

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Margit and Godrick down. this game is a BLAST!

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Gratz!

Stormwind Castle is what is defined as a "Legacy Dungeon". These are various locations that are most like the levels of previous SoulsBorne games. Different paths, shortcuts taking you back to other areas, blocked areas you have to go around to find ways to. The level design of FromSoft games is some of the best in gaming and Legacy Dungeons are where you find this in Elden Ring.

I love Stormwind and have cleared it countless numbers of times. Always scan around you 360 degrees in areas like this. Look over the edges of cliffs. If you see a spot that looks like you can get to it, you probably can.

There is a deep area you can get to, far below Stormwind, if you haven't found it yet. I didn't find it on my first playthrough, though I could see a place but didn't know how to get to it. A lot of the pathing requires you to do some platforming.

I will say, be sure to clear as many NPC quests as you can in Limgrave, The Weeping Penninsula, and Liurnia of the Lakes BEFORE resting at a site of grace in the Altus Plateau. I don't want to ruin anything for you, but the first time you rest at a site of Grace in the Altus Plateau, there are a few questlines that can become locked if you hadn't already progressed them by that point.

appreciate the pointers. right now I'm trying to figure out how to get to the castle thing on the tall island outside after beating godrick and talking to boc and grape girl

Have fun!

If you ever want hints without spoilers or outright telling you where to go, I'm happy to be cryptic. But I will never purposefully spoil this game for anyone. It's also important to know something about Miyazaki and his team. They have no problem hiding 20 hours worth of content behind a secret that 50% of players never come across.

Use your map to see points of interest and go explore! But my advice earlier about keeping a journal is one I HIGHLY recommend for most people. There is very little dialogue in this game. So when an NPC says anything, it can be filled with hints. Pay attention to these things. Exhaust their dialogue. Sometimes, you need to sit at a site of grace before being able to progress NPC quests. Go back to older NPC's after killing important bosses or doing important things to see if they have no dialogue.

Also, if you are interested in the lore of the world, read the descriptions of every item you pickup. The worldbuilding in Elden ring is primarily visual and through item descriptions, with about 20% of it being through dialogue. It's really cool when you start connecting things.