Gaming O Death - The FromSoftware Thread [ELDEN RING]

Beat Messmer the Impaler. Really fun boss fight.

Spoiler

Let’s see…”younger sister”…”vision of fire”…“kindling”



Oh.

 

Spoiler

Yeah, there's a consensus forming on that.


They seem to also be Radagon's children, maybe before Godfrey.

Or maybe the Ancient Dragon Elden Ring we meet (who we now know was injured by Bayle) was the serpent who attacked the Elden Tree, Marika's first husband who she seduced and betrayed, the Elden Lord of the Hornsent, and the father of Mesmer and Melina.

 

Finished the dlc and

Spoiler

if I had a nickel for every time FromSoft made a boss fight that involved one brother piggyback riding on their other brother, I’d have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.



Anyway, while I don’t have a problem with the fight lore-wise, I do agree with the criticism that while the first manages to be pretty challenging, but still fair, once Miquella appears, the difficulty ramps up to the point where it feels downright sadistic at times. At least Malenia wasn’t flash banging me with every attack.

Also, loved this observation:

 

Is time itself ****ed in Elden Ring, probably because of the Shattering? Besides whatever's going on with Farum Azula, events generally seem to have happened simultaneously thousands of years ago and yesterday. There are ancient, practically undead soldiers and nobles wandering around, yet also there are young and naive NPCs who don't seem to come from the same post-apocalyptic world.

 

My understanding is that the discrepancy has something to do with the shattering + the rune of death being sealed away.

 

I made my first two attempts to beat Malenia. First time, my Mimic Tear and I got her down to half health in her second phase. Second time, I tried Tiche and she got annihilated during the first phase while I failed to dodge the scarlet aenoia after the phase transition. The biggest difficulty is that this boss does a ****ton of damage when she gets hits in. While I kinda know how I'm supposed to avoid waterfowl dance, it's not so simple to do that in the moment with it being probably the hardest attack to dodge in the game (maybe the DLC changed that). If only I could tell my Mimic Tear what to do. It would be easy to keep her staggered if both of us just kept hitting.

 

For Malenia, you just have to be as aggressive as possible. The more you can stagger her, the less often you’ll have to defend against her whirlwind attacks. And when she does do that attack, around half the time it will focus on your Mimic Tear instead of you, giving you time to get out of range and heal.

Your shield is largely useless against her, so if you’re comfortable, you can try two-handing your weapon and just dodging whenever she goes on the offensive.

My weapon of choice for her (and for the entire game TBH) is the Bloodhound Fang. Its bleeding effect is quite effective against her, and it will stack with the Mimic’s attacks too.

 

If you don't auto-lock on Malenia for long, have your back turned on her, and keep a medium distance as she slowly walks, she won't attack you. I beat her by using a spell, autolocking and facing her for just a moment to focus it, then turning around, for basically all of Phase 1. She attacked me twice but I didn't engage, just healed and was patient. And then in Phase 2 I summoned Black Knife Tiche and just went on complete offense. I still had to level up to a point, and had tried so many builds, but after a lot of patience it finally worked. The watchdog staff's spell effect was great for the phase 1 "hit and run" on blind Malenia. For phase 2, besides going at it with my meteorite katana, I used the spiral shard sorcery spell a lot... it follows its target, it physically staggers for a bit, and it doesn't cost much FP.

 

Well, I tried another 15-20 times and beat her. Had to go to Rennala and respec my character for the first time so I could use Golden Vow. I also used crab meat, Dragon Greatshield talisman, and Flame Grant Me Strength. Only boss fight so far where I stacked buffs (usually I just drink the physick). A special thanks to my Mimic Tear for the support, even though it's stupid enough to run into scarlet aeonia. I wanted to use Malenia's katana, but it requires 48 dexterity??! I only have 40.

I went to Farum Azula afterward and up until the Godskin Duo ambushed me, I thought it was much easier than the Haligtree. I took care of that stupid ancient dragon on the first try.

 

Farum Azula was fun! Did you do Mohg and the underground cities yet? Or Ranni’s quest or the other side character quests? After you do the final boss on Farum Azula, a lot of those quests get locked out. And some areas and drops and talismans in the inner capital.

 

Yes, I did Ranni's quest and all the underground areas (both Mohgs, Godwyn's body, Leyndell catacombs), but I forgot to do some of the Goldmask stuff before I beat Maliketh. Oh well, I'll probably do a NG+ run.

 

I know there are a lot of ambiguous plot points, worldbuilding, and character motivations, but I can't understand why Gideon thinks he can successfully confront the Tarnished of No Renown at that point in the game. He knows everything the player accomplished-- beat demigods that he dared not face. What did he do, massacre a village of paraplegics? Why does he even care if the Elden Beast kills the Tarnished like he thinks it will?

 

In a non-Elden Ring-but still FromSoft relate)-update, I finished my second playthrough of Dark Souls II and it was an interesting experience. First time I played it, I ranked it dead last, feeling that while it was a very good game, it never quite *clicked* for me in the way the first and third entries did. This time around, I'd rank about equal with the third game. On the one hand the gameplay lacks the polish and smoothness of III's, and the adp mechanic really should've been scrapped. However, I've really grown to appreciate it's dreamlike atmosphere, as well as it's effort to carve out something distinct from the first game, in contrast to III's more direct callback's. Also, Majula is easily my favourite hub area FromSoft has done.

 

Shadow of the Erdtree has received another patch and it looks like some of the changes are designed to make Radhan’s boss fight less punishing. Which kind of funny since they had do the same thing with his boss fight in the base game.

 

I first-tried Dancing Lion (the ruins one with the Deathblight got me), the hippo(s), da bears, Rellana, Romina, Bayle (had more trouble with Senessax), Gaius, the Scooby Doo Avatar, and Metyr. I don't think it was so much skill level-- though of course 100 hours in the base game right before jumping into the DLC helped-- as I collected as many of those Skibidi fragments as I could. I still need to do the Putrescent Knight and Messmer and then the final boss. Maybe with this patch I'll first-try him too?

On another note, **** the armored fire golems.

 

Yeah, I was able to beat most of the dlc’s remembrance bosses on the first few tries, the only ones that I struggled with were the sunflower and Radhan.

 

Don't forget Midra! And the four hidden/nameless temples, and Wolverine.

Midra and Rellana gave me the most trouble, along with the evil Sunflower avatar, the bear near Messmer's camp, and some of the fire golems. For the fire golem in Messmer's camp, I eventually snuck around and took out the entire camp and then just did a bunch of hit and run attacks. But the key for me with Rellana was just finding the shortcut around the castle and levelling up significantly before coming back. Those dual swords are great, and the twin moons... the only DLC boss I copied a remembrance for.

I really wish we got more cutscenes for the DLC bosses. There's definitely some locations I thought there would be more to, like the Scadutree itself and the bowl its sap falls into, or that that Tower where all death washes up.

 

I took care of Midra, Messmer, and the Putrescent Knight. I tried a few times with Politically Correct Radahn, but he usually gets me when he's about 1/4 health. I am missing one Scooby Snack fragment, and I went through a video guide searching for it. After driving myself nuts trying to figure it out, I've come to the conclusion that one of the shadow pot enemies glitched and didn't drop a fragment the first time I defeated them or somehow I didn't pick it up. If someone has a better idea, let me know, because it would help me out to be fully leveled. It's a bit annoying that they put extra Golden Seeds around in the base game but not the fragments or ashes.

Regarding the Suppressing Pillar, I think the point of putting it in the game is to show definitively that the Shadow Realm was once physically part of the Lands Between. If you put the Shadow Realm map where it seems to fit in the main map, the Pillar is at the center of all the Divine Towers. It also seems to imply that the world is a sort of purgatory, as though the name is not just a reference to Middle-Earth but also short for "the Lands Between Life and Death." I'm not sure if the purgatory interpretation fits with the other things we know about the world.

 

Almost happened with me with the Scadutree fragments too. It was one of the pot guys I knew I had defeated, but I guess it wasn't at night earlier, it was right in the beginning area.

 

Yeah, probably my main complaint is that we don’t get cutscenes for most of the remembrance bosses, but we do get one for…lowering the water level in the Shadow Keep.

 

Wait, it has to be at night?

 

I think it's true for some of them.

 

Yes, AI. But also, the uncanny valley creepiness actually fits well with Elden Ring's atmosphere.