Elden Ring, Builds and Tactics

[Cognisant]

Spoilers obviously.

If you do Gowry's questline you can purchase the Night Maiden's Mist spell from him, it is truly excellent and has minimal requirements. The spell creates a cloud of white particles which lasts about 20-30 seconds, does damage over time (magical I think) and cannot be blocked.

The Fumigator
Using a stave and the spiked tower shield you fight defensively and spam the mist spell, using the shield's bash attack to punish anyone trying to stance break you. In an enclosed area you can quickly fill the entire space with mist, forcing them to flee through it or run through it to attack you. The mist doesn't do a lot of damage but it does very consistent damage over time and it's a surprisingly cheap spell to cast, ideally you want to catch them at the edge of the cloud preventing them escaping it while they strike you shield ineffectually.

 

[Ex-User (9086)]

A new souls like and it has multiplayer?

Maybe I play this in a co-op, it's possible to disable the summon/unsummon thing and have infinite co-op via ram edit or cheat engine.

I'll post a build once I start playing, but if it's Fromsoftware then shields and blocks are op.

 

[Ex-User (9086)]

This guy never disappoints XD, honest review. Skip to 8:45 for exploits and builds.


Just had a balance discussion and the ideas to improve the game are:
- All enemies, bosses and basic mobs deal a fixed % hp damage. 100% hp damage by default, basically everything kills the player with 1 hit
- Players choose build types by focusing their stats on damage or tankiness:
full damage builds always die to 1 hit, let's call it 0 mistake builds. 0 mistake has damage increased to 200% in cheat engine
tankier builds progressively can make 1, 2, 3 or more mistakes for example a 1 mistake build takes 50% hp damage with every hit, damage is 100% of normal. 2 mistake builds take 33% hp damage and deal 50% of normal damage, etc.
- All boss fights are escapable, if you are dying you can run away and reset the fight (achievable with ghosting in cheat engine)
- Drinking flasks takes 15 seconds, can't be done in a fight
- Only 10 deaths are allowed, the saves should be deleted after 10 deaths
- On death, the player loses 25% of all of their stats, they need to grind back xp to level back to where they were
- In group fights damage taken by the player is reduced by the amount of enemies, let's say if the player is fighting 5 mobs then the damage they take is 25% of normal 100% hp

I believe that all of these modifications are achievable in cheat engine or enforceable by honest play. The only thing you have to be honest about is deleting your save files and restarting like in roguelikes.

Payoff for playing with this setup---> ultimate bragging rights comparable to no damage runs. You should probably record your runs if you want your bragging to be taken seriously

 

[Ex-User (9086)]

Oh and before someone comes in and says that video games are only challenging in multiplayer pvp, that's nonsense.

Playing a singleplayer roguelike game or with a roguelike mindset or going to the extreme and deleting your own saves is a PvP game. You vs the game designer (level designer, etc.). You look for the weaknesses and exploits and avoid all mistakes.

There are no single player games, every game is an asymmetric PvP, multiplayer games are actually symmetrical PvP's.

Ultimately nothing is impossible, more handicap just means a bigger cognitive load to overcome and think through. It's a function of enjoyment vs time spent.

Everyone on this forum could finish a dark souls no damage run, but it would take them a varying amount of time to succeed.

If someone succeeds in 2 attempts and someone in 20 it doesn't mean the first one is better in any meaningful way. It would be like bragging who has higher IQ or a bigger dick and that's just retarded.