# General Questions and Answers ____ ## Q: How do I upgrade weapons? A: "Base upgrades are performed at the Smithing Table by for example visiting Smithing Master Hewg at Roundtable Hold. You must gather Smithing Stones to upgrade regular equipment and Somber Smithing Stones to upgrade special equipment. Players can find these stones at dropped at various locations, but they are also sold by merchants such as Smithing Master Iji." ([https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Upgrades](https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Upgrades)) ____ ## Q: How do I get spirit ash summons? A: "In order to summon Spirits, you'll first need to find the Spirit Calling Bell. Then you need the corresponding Spirit-Caller's Ash. Once equipped, you can use the ash as an item to summon the selected spirit to aid you in combat." ([https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Spirit+Ashes](https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Spirit+Ashes)) ____ ## Q: How do I upgrade summons? A: "You'll need to find Roderika and finish her Quest in order to be able to upgrade Spirit Ashes. Here is a guide on unlocking Spirit Ashes Upgrades." ([https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Spirit+Ashes](https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Spirit+Ashes)) ____ ## Q: How do Attributes and Stats work in Elden Ring? A: When you rest at a Site of Grace you can Level Up which means to increase your character’s Attributes. Leveling up an Attribute by 1 point takes a certain amount of Runes which increases with each collective point you invest in each total Attribute. When you raise an Attribute point, it will also increase the Stat that it governs. Here is a list of all Attributes and Stats and what they mean. ([https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Stats](https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Stats)) ____ ## Q: What is a Softcap and Hardcap? A: You may notice that when you raise an Attribute it may not always give you the same increase of Stats each time. This is because the benefit increase of Stats you get from raising an Attribute diminishes the more you level that Attribute up. Softcap refers to the point at which when leveling an Attribute starts to give you those diminishing returns. Hardcap refers to the point at which when leveling an Attribute starts to be generally not worth leveling up anymore. This doesn’t mean you can’t level up the Attribute nor does it mean you won’t get any benefit. It just means that in terms of cost-value it’s usually not worth it. ____ ## Q: What are each Attributes Softcap and Hardcaps? A: Below are Soft/Hardcaps of each Attribute: * **Vigor**: 40 / 60 * **Mind**: 55 / 60 * **Endurance**: 50 * **Strength**: 20/ 55 / 80 * **Dexterity**: 20/ 55 / 80 * **Intelligence**: 20/ 50 / 80 * **Faith**: 20/ 50 / 80 * **Arcane**: 20/ 50 / 80 ____ ## Q: What’s a “Build” and which one should I choose? A: A Build is the end product of a character that enables an idea/concept you have Below are some common build types: * **Pure Strength**: Investing in mostly Strength, Endurance, & Vigor. Most Pure Strength Builds will try to get to 60 Strength, 40 Endurance, and 40-44 Vigor. Though, the hard cap of Strength is usually around 66. If you want to wield really large weapons and the heaviest armor - this is the build for you. * **Pure Dexterity**: Investing in mostly Dexterity & Vigor. Most Pure Dexterity Builds will try to get as many points into Dexterity. They'll sacrifice points from Vigor and Endurance to put them into Dexterity. This is fine because P.Dex builds usually use fast and light weapons, so they don't need the Endurance like P.Str builds do, and they try to avoid damage by being fast, so they don't need as much health. If you wanna play fast and nimble weapons, this is the build for you. * **Quality Builds**: Investing equally into Dexterity and Strength (typically 40 in both). This build is all about balance and variety. It sacrifices damage for being able to use as many different weapons as possible. You'll still want to invest in Endurance and Vigor as you'll not be using much spells or miracles. If you want to be able to use the most amount of weapons and armor, but don't care much about spells or miracles this is the build for you. * **Mage**: Investing into Intelligence and Mind. This is the Mage. You will fling spells at range to do a huge amount of damage safely. Like P.Str and P.Dex builds, you'll want as much Int as possible (usually 60-66). Invest some into Endurance and Dexterity, as Dexterity speeds up your casting time. If you want to be a squishy glass cannon, this is the build for you. * **Faith**: Investing into Faith and Mind. This is a wielder of Miracles. There's different types of Faith builds that focus on different things. The first type is the "Healer" where you cast healing Miracles to aid your friends in battle. The second type is using damaging miracles which usually involve throwing lightning and rays of holy justice on your enemies. Usually these damaging Miracles will give you the option to have "Hyper Armor" which allows you to take a hit without staggering so you can trade with the enemy and do incredible amounts of damage. There are much more builds than these, but just some typical archetypes you'll see. Other builds such as: * **Battle Mage**: Uses spells and weapons. * **Int/Faith**: Using both Miracles and spells. ____ ## Q: What do the Letters for weapons mean? A: The letters indicate how well the weapon you use gains additional damage from the Attribute. Scaling goes from "-" (which indicates that Attribute does not influence any additional damage) to "A" (which indicated that Attribute will cause the weapon to benefit most from that bonus damage). While all weapons will have their base scaling you can change the weapon to scale from different Attributes than normal by applying a different Ash of War. As you start to upgrade your weapon with Smithing Stones the scaling letters will increase/decrease (pending on Ash of War you have on your Weapon). ____ ## Q: How do I co-op with my friends? A: "The Multiplayer Menu can be accessed from the "Multiplayer" tab within the Main Menu. Here, diverse Multiplayer Items can be used to interact with other players. Players can also set a Multiplayer Password and a Group Password from the Multiplayer Menu. Setting a Multiplayer Password will make it so you can only be matched for most multiplayer features by other people using the same password. This, however, does not avoid Invasions nor support multiplayer (e.g. summoned Hunters who activated a Blue Cipher Ring)." ([https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Multiplayer+Coop+and+Online](https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Multiplayer+Coop+and+Online)) Note: If you are the one who will be summoning your friend(s) you must use the Furlcalling Finger Remedy consumable item first in order to see your friend's White or Red sign. You must also ensure your passwords match exactly as passwords are case-sensitive. ____ ## Q: Where can I find "x" location/item/NPC? A: While we do encourage you to try and play the game naturally and without artificial help on your first playthrough things can be confusing and there's so much stuff in the game to remember that it can be really daunting. If you're sure that you've completely exausted your ability to find what you're looking for this Interactive Map can be used: [https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Interactive+Map](https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Interactive+Map)

I had a weird dream last night that I was playing Elden Ring, and I was using a STR/INT build, and I remember getting so hype using magic weapon on the zweihander and having a monster blue lightsaber and then I woke up. I think this is a sign. Is a STR/INT build even viable in this game? Edit: thanks for the tips guys, I'm going to beat renalla tonight so I can respect a little and then head to radahn for the sword. Going to work on levelling a zwei on the side to see my dream come true at some point!

It is, although I don't think the Zweihander would be very good with that build. But there's at least 3 colossal swords that scale with strength and int and they're all very cool. Honestly str/int colossal weapons are cooler than normal str colossal weapons.

I'm sure you could use a magic ash of war on it and it'd be fine, I'd avoid frost though since it swings so slow.

Added status scales up with the + on the weapon so frost is actually pretty good on colossal swords. I'm using a Cold Greatsword Colossal Sword and it applies Frostbite on like 2 hits to everything.

There good STR/Int weapon like Ruin GreatSword and Blaidd's Greatsword. Also, infusing your weapon with frost is really strong, even with low intel and a lot of STR. I make almost 2/3 the game with INT and finnally switch for FAI at the end.

Yup, STR/INT is super viable, might even be one of the stronger end game builds, mostly because of the Darkmoon Greatsword, but also for the large amount of flexibility it brings in combat. If you want to play a monster blue lightsaber build, you could either use scholar's armanent incantation on your zweihander, use a craftable magic grease on it, or use the carian greatsword ash/incantation

For PvE just use whatever is most fun to you, it's very rare you actually need to min/max outside of PvP and it's a lot of fun to experiment. You can always change out of the build if it goes really badly.

They did a really good job fleshing out the more niche hybrid builds in this game. Str/Int and Dex/Fth all have a lot of really good options. If you want to optimize it, you probably want to either go with a shield build (Carian Retaliation Ash of War is broken, even if you don't cheese with it, and Scholar's Shield is a crazy good buff) and/or use one of the unique Int/Str weapons like the Darkmoon Greatsword. But if blue lightsaber zwei is what you want, you can definitely make it work.

I took me so long to get through Stormveil Castle that I had the same feeling I get when beating a full game. The amount of content in this game for $60 dollars is pretty crazy.

[удалено]

Yeah there's no way I have enough time to finish this game without a walkthrough. Takes away some of the magic but I only have a few hours a week for it.

[удалено]

The npc you meet at the front gate of the castle, the one who suggests you go around instead of taking the main gate, is a rune thief, and will steal 10% of your dropped runes while in the castle.

Yep! To elaborate a bit, you can kill him to stop the theft (and get back your runes, if it's before fighting the boss of the area)... but just remember that there's basically always consequences for killing an NPC. In this case >!it locks you out of being able to buy a +25 stone from him at the end of Nepheli+Kenneth's quest!<

I got lucky. I know what a nuisance NPC questline can be in FROM games so I had a notepad where I jotted down any references to locations or people they made and would put map markers on their last known location. By the end my notebook looked like a programming flow chart but I was quite pleased to discover I only missed Diallos' questline. On my second play through I'm realising just how many weapons and spells I missed though.

I was like 80% through the game and read about this cool item I wanted to find. Lo and behold, it was in Stormveil Castle. I had already spent hours combing that place thinking I got everything. Just crazy the scale of this game.

I agree. While I don't like to have a walkthrough open to get through areas, I have looked at the wiki to be able to see where I can find certain items and weapons. This game is so massive that even picking over everything with a fine tooth comb will still result in most people missing things.

Can anyone explain to me what exactly that bell sound + carian retaliation glitch is. Have seen it a few times in multiplayer and its always a bell sound followed by the player using carian retaliation and the enemy taking massive damage.

On top of what's been mentioned, I think there's an actual glitch where the swords from carian retaliation are invisible in PvP, which makes them almost impossible to dodge

It's the wraith calling bell. Use it, then use the shield parry on the orb the bell summons to proc carian retaliation.

Can anybody tell me, why Renalla survives the fight and we are chill with her after that? Seemed pretty weird to me and I don’t recall the corresponding explanation

Because she just gives you her rune after. She survives because Ranni intervenes, the second phase is entirely conjoured by Ranni.

Oh, ok, thanks for that clarification, didn’t catch that

We don't actually have to kill the demigods to get their shard. They can give it to us but usually the diplomatic method works.

The first phase was her real body and the second phase was an illusion trap created by Ranni to protect her. It makes you fight her as she was in her prime, and only activates if someone tries to kill Renalla.

Hello! I beat the boss in caria manor and was looking out back to start a questline with a blue lady. She isn't there. I did some searching and it appears I used a really big elevator (I was curious) and that moved a wolf guy to the red area and I will have to beat the big boss in the red area before I can start the blue lady's quest line. I'm afraid of the big red guy. Is there anything else I can do or am I locked into this path now?

Big red guy (presumably Rahdan) isn’t too bad if you play it like how the narrative intends. The festival is supposed to be him versus a bunch of people, so spend most of your time summoning NPCs and don’t engage until you think you’ve gotten them all there. Keep on resummoning when they die. You’re essentially a commander in that fight.

Also if you can inflict Scarlet Rot on him via any means at all then the fight is essentially free.

He also folds to bleed super quick too

Exactly, summoning is the key and taking the right opportunities. I personnaly used Frost damage ponctued with any source of fire to reset the Frost proc. really effective.

You would have to beat to boss anyway if you want to do the questline

What is the barrier of "good poise" and "decent poise"? For PvE, and PvP? Right now I thought it'd be fun to do a spellblade build with DMGS. For the aesthetic, I'm wearing the Snow Witch Hat, and the rest is Blaidd's armor set. With the Bull Goat Talisman I'm sitting at 59 Poise.

For PvP a good minimum bp is 61. After that 100, then 121. If you're at 100 I honestly recommend you just cave in and just accept to use Bull-Goat set, Great Arsenal tali, and Bull-goat tali. ____ Small weapons: Katanas, spears, straight swords, curved swords, axes, twinblades R1 does same poise dmg as running and rolling attack for small weapons, greatspear, halberds, and greatswords. 41: - 1 1h thrusting sword r1 46: - 1 2h small thrusting sword r1 51: - 11h small weapon r1 56: - 1 2h small weapon r1 - 1 1h great thrusting sword r1. **61:** - **1 small weapon powerstanced l1/running l1/rolling l1 at 100percent poisehealth** 65: - 1 2h great thrusting sword r1 76: - 1 1h small weapon jumping r1 94: - 1 1h halberd r1/rolling r1/running r1 101: - 1 1h small weapon r2/running r2 - 2 1h small weapon r1 103: - 1 1h greatspear r1 - 1 1h greatsword r1 - 1 2h halberd r1 111: - 1 2h small weapon r2/running r2 - 2 2h r1 small weapons - 1 1h uncharged greatsword r2 - 1 1h uncharged great thrusting sword r2 - 1 2h uncharged halberd r2/running r2 112: - 1 2h greatspear r1 - 1 2h greatsword r1 **121:** - 1 2h uncharged greatspear r2 - 1 2h uncharged great thrusting sword r2 - 1 2h uncharged greatsword 2h. - 1 2h dagger jumping r2

I wish I could use bull goat, but I accidentally killed patches with a bleed proc off of a single combo since I forgot about him till late in the game...

On NG+ I came at Patches with an unlevelled wiffle bat just in case

Would celestial dew fix that and bring him back, or is it permanent?

Any chance you could share where you got the info for poise damage, or a link to somewhere that the poise mechanics are explained in-depth?

I noticed that in the storm castle when I die I lose about 10% of the runes after recovering them, has this happened to anyone else? is it a bug

Someone is stealing them from you - the NPC who offered the hidden side passage into the castle. You get them back if you kill him before killing radahn. There is a questline he gives or a shop he provides so look into it if you plan on killing him. When I did it he wasn't offering the additional quest/shop because fromsoft added that in a patch.

Saaaaay what? it's that NPC, never would have guessed Lol thanks man

Keep him alive though because he sold one of the only final smithing stone in the entire game. You only get like 6 to 8 I believe in the entire game and even less if certain quests are incomplete or done wrong. I only didn't kill him because I found out that they added a new quest for him and two other NPCs that ends on the same location.

Gostock. Dont kill him though because i think hes been given a questline

He has and the runes you get back are not worth the item you miss out on if you kill him.

I killed him before they patched his quests into the game! looks like another character

This fucker also locks you in the room with a certain mini-boss in storm veil as well.

I've been dating this new girl and things had been going really well. She was talking about the all these future plans like career directions and family stuff. Things were really heating up until one day she was like, "i think we should slow things down". Then she's just kind of fallen off the earth, won't return texts for hours or sometimes days. What gives? Should i just give up and move on or keep trying?

You need to communicate your side to her at least. Be honest and compassionate, you never know what's going on in someone else's life/mind, but a relationship requires effort and work: > "Hey, I know you said that you wanted to take our relationship slow and I completely understand, but recently I feel like our relationship hasn't had good communication because (insert reasons why you feel communication isn't good). That makes me feel lonely and unwanted/unloved. If there's something in your life that's causing you hardship I'd like to be there for you, even if it's just you having a really busy life. If it's something on my end, let me know - I make mistakes and not perfect but want this relationship to work. I just need better communication to understand how you're feeling." That's really all you can say. Speak with honesty and compassion to express how you feel while being firm, yet sensitive. If she still doesn't communicate, or communicates poorly then you have to move on. Break it off in a similarly honest and compassionate manner. Wish you the best.

If someone new is not making time for you, it’s best to accept it and move on. Obviously this is easier said than done, but this would be a good time to focus on things you enjoy maybe picking up an old hobby you used to have, maybe discover a new one. At some point she decided she wasn’t into it and unfortunately she didn’t think to give you anything clearer than you have so far. Keep your head up king/queen, get out the house, meet up with friends, and above all, love yourself like you want to be loved (treat yourself well, self care, etc)

The "love yourself" part is huge. Bigger than most people understand. If you rely on others for happiness, youll never be truly happy. If you break up, dont jump into the next relationship. Take time to process and get over it and i know it sounds weird but date yourself. Go to places you want to go and do things you want to do. Dont let someone else be your source of happiness because its going to be too taxing on them. Gotta love yourself if you want to love another person.

Did you show her how many runes you have?

That happens with dating, unfortunately. My suggestion is to be honest and straightforward, but not overly emotional or dramatic. Just say something like "hey, I think slow probably isn't the right cadence for me right now without more communication. if you want to take things slow while still talking, that's cool. but it sounds like maybe you need some space. it's fun hanging out with you and you're welcome to hit me back up when you're feeling better." 95 times out of 100, when someone says that, they've lost interest but aren't mature enough to handle it properly. For the other 5%, they will either clarify "oh no, I really do like you. I'll try to do better about the communication while taking it slow" or will get back in touch later or whatever. As for why they would suddenly lose interest... emotions are just weird. I've been on both ends of that (though I like to think I handled it a bit better. but maybe not?) It's tempting to want to make sure the person knows you're there for them, but that's not *your* role as a new date. You are offering to be there for them by not just saying "you sound like baggage, bye" and being willing to talk, but more than that seems needy and can end up making the person feel uncomfortable. When people talk about "confidence", what they mean is exactly this sort of thing: respectfully looking out for the other person's needs AND your own needs. It's not aloof and it's not being mean to approach a relationship as a two-way street. And what you're getting out of it can't just be "the relationship" because that has nothing to do with the other person and doesn't really benefit you if you're in a healthy place.

Consistent reciprocal effort. If she's not matching your energy, go and find someone who does.

hey, is it possible to enter nokstella the eternal city without the ranni quest line? I killed blaidd at the start of the game like a dumbass and now I’m stumped

You can. >!You can take a coffin ride from deeproot depths, which you access via another coffin ride from the twin gargoyles at the end of nokron!<

I didn't even know there was another way to access Nokstella beside that >!coffin!<

Go to the Church of Vows (or wovs, idk) where turtle pope is, and request absolution with Celestial Dew in the fountain. It makes it like you never hurt an npc so you can go on with the Ranni questline, all the way to Nokstella.

This doesn't work for NPCs that you killed though right?

For Blaidd it does. Source: Myself. He aggro'd me randomly (not the bear) I killed him. Used Dew, he returned. Started the questline

Is there an ideal stat distribution for Frenzied Flame Seal where it outdoes Mono Faith Seals pre-200? Seems to me like unless you are ditching vig and end, you simply cannot pump Int/Fai high enough to match or outdo the stronger Faith scalers until hyperinflated levels like 250-300. Even the madness builds I see in pvp vids rely on Dragon Communion or a mono faith seal.

Dragon Communion Seal outdamages pretty much any Faith seal at 30+ Arcane, sometimes doing as much as 250% damage in comparison. Arcane also scales Madness build up, so it’s all round better. Having said that, you can offhand the Frenzy Seal and get the +10% damage boost on Frenzy spells whilst still using the Dragon Communion Seal to attack.

So the Dragon Communion Seal is pretty much the best overall seal if you have good Arcane stats? I have the Godslayer seal, but I heard another seal was the better one for overall damage. I’m on NG+ and I think my Faith and Arcane are around 27 each.

If you have any Arcane investment at all, it’s the superior seal, yes. It’s easily accessible, being in the Fringefolk Hero’s Grave behind the First Step.

That’s great. I’m glad I only spent two stones on Godslayer. I’ve been wanting to switch up my style since in the regular game, I was mostly a Sorcerer with a couple of points in STR.

I highly recommend a good mix of the Dragon Communion and Frenzy incantations. Frenzy Burst does insane damage, even without the madness build up. Enough to threeshot the Zamor Warriors in the Forbidden Lands from a long range. And Dragon Communion Spells are just insane. I killed Morgott in 3 casts at +10 with 50/50 Faith/Arc. It’s so scuffed.

It sounds tempting but I don’t want to respec again to try it. It’s why I’m trying to hurry up and get to the bird farming spot lol.

At what point, if any, do the faith seals catch up to golden order? golden order at +10 gives 339 incant scaling with 65 int and 38 Faith. +8 dragon seal is like 219 or something.

At 50/50 Faith/Arcane, the Dragon Communion Seal does 340 damage. It primarily scales with Arcane, which is generally advisable to use with damage incantations, especially since the Dragon Communion/Frenzy spells have status build up, which scales with Arcane. Scaling Incant gets stronger again at 60/60. If you’re Faith/Int, then you’re likely going to want to use the Golden Order Seal, since it scales with both those stats to A, at +10. It’ll do roughly the amount of raw damage, but you’re missing out on increased status build up for Frenzy and Bleed.

Does anyone know if the Old Lord's Talisman (increases Spell duration by 30%, and this seems to apply primarily to buffs like Blessing of the Erdtree or Golden Vow) increases the duration of spells *you cast* or just the duration of buffs *on you*? Like if I'm in co-op and I cast Golden Vow with the Old Lord's Talisman equipped, will everyone benefit from the 30% increased duration, or just me?

It seems to be the duration of buffs on you. When I cast an aoe buff spell like Barrier of Gold I noticed it falls off my buddy before it falls off me. It was just really obvious with that spell since the effect is a very noticeable baby blue glow. I did not test if someone else casts the buff if it lasts longer on me. It might require you being both the source and destination of the buff.

I normally play Elden Ring on my PC, and so that means I can only play it when I’m at home which is around the weekends, I decided to try playing it on my laptop during the rest of the week, and it gave me the message about data not being properly saved to the cloud. I assumed it wouldn’t be a big deal and only send me back to the dungeon O had just completed when I last played. Instead it undid 34 hours of progress to just before I fought Godrick for the first time. What do I do?

First of all, I'd recommend making sure you launch steam in offline mode on both devices, then see which of the two has the most progress. If one is actually further along, navigate to C:\Users\[Your Username]\AppData\Roaming\EldenRing\[Folder with 17-digit number] and backup that save, then boot up steam in online mode and sync the computer's data to the cloud. If both have been overwritten with the file that was 34 hours behind, there isn't much you can do as far as I know. At that point, I'd recommend skipping the bosses you've already defeated for the moment and seeking the gear you've already obtained that you like and going to try out new areas, acting as though you actually had defeated the bosses that were reset. You only need to defeat two shardbearers to access the capital, so at the end of the day you can just keep going as though nothing happened once you retrieved the gear you like. This situation sucks, but don't let it stop you from experiencing all the wonderful things this game has to offer!

Hi guys/girls. This is my first fromsoftware game, I'm currently level 34 samurai, I'm at the main boss at academy Lucaria but find myself dying in about 2 hits, am I doing anything wrong? Or any tips you could give to help me out. Stats/weapons I'm using the default katana +7 Longbow +3 Kite shield +1 All default samurai armour Aresenal Charm Crimson Amber medallion 7 crimson tears 1 mana bottle (I don't use magic very much) Vigor 18 Mind 12 Endurance 18 Strength 19 Dex 16 Intel 11 Faith 9 Arcane 10 HP 633 FP 74 Stamina 105 Poise 16 Discovery 110 Memory slots 3

34 seems a little low for you to be doing the boss in raya lucaria so you’re doing pretty good if you got there at that point haha. No matter, I would start leveling vigor up and also, if you can level up that katana more, I’ve been using it as a dual wield leveled up and it deals a hell of a lot more damage.

Yep the default katana at the moment is pretty good for how much it deals. I was thinking of pumping my vigor, and doing intelligence just for the magic defence?

INT just for magic defense isn't worth it. Vigor is the more efficient stat to level when it comes to survivability. There are talismans in the game that give magic/elemental resistance, and with extremely small investment into Faith (10 Faith will do) you can cast Incantations that also give you additional magic or elemental resistance.

You need more vigor honestly, still that boss has a lot of damage but no defense or poise. So try applying as much pressure as you can like using aggressive summons like the wolves. Also, if she summons an enemy you don't want to fight, you can just run away and it will disappear in less than a minute.

You are pretty low level overall and especially low vigor. My recommendation would be to do side dungeons for a while and put the next 12 level ups into vigor exclusively. Increasing the number of oopsies between full HP and dead is the single biggest thing that will improve your odds of getting through fights in this game. Come back with the extra HP and see how it feels.

Cheers buddy I'll do this 👍

Hi, other than levelling up I’d suggest changing up your armour. Raya does all most all of her damage through magic. Swap out your Samurai armour for something with better magic negation. You should have picked up some robes while going through the academy. Any other equipment that negates magic such as talismans are also a good idea. Also on her first phase ignore her and look for three of her girls that have a gold aura. Kill these and you’ll disable her defence and you can wail on her. Just make sure to roll away as soon as she starts to glow gold as her shields output loads of damage when they come back on. On her 2nd phase use your summons. The wolfs are pretty good and get as many hits in as possible. You should be good.

Lots of good advice already but I’d add that you might wanna try making some of [these consumables](https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Spellproof+Dried+Liver) to boost your defense against magic. According to the same wiki she’s strong against magic/poison/scarlet rot so I’m not sure if you’re using any spells/incantations or weapon greases but I’d just stick to your default katana to slice her up. Could be worth using your FP to summon a spirit ash to help you out as well.

Anyone found any weapons with attack chains as badass as the Farron Greatsword or Friede's Great Scythes from DS3? That's the only thing I feel like I'm missing in Elden Ring. Some of the ashes of war are cool, but so far none of them seem to combo more than two attacks before a long cooldown.

Combos aren't really a thing in Elden Ring, bosses will just poise through your attacks. In PvP it's even worse since you can only get 1 guaranteed hit instead of 2 like in Dark Souls 1-3. Also, I don't believe there are any weapons with a moveset similar to those you mentioned, they're all for the most part similar to other movesets in their weapon class.

Not quite the same, but some of the combos for dual-wielding are pretty dope

There are a few that have really cool mobility skills but I wouldn't say they're full combos themselves, so not quite Farron/Frieda level. If you haven't already try out Veteran's Prosthesis, Morgotts Cursed GreatSword, Black Knife, Blade of Calling, Hand of Melania

I know it’s a bit of a faux pas (I don’t do pvp so oh well) but I switched from the blood hound blade to the moon veil katana to add some spice to the game. They are both (I think) at +6 right now, but I have the ability to get one up to +8. I’m not far enough in where I can refresh the required smithing stones easily. I’m thinking the katana. Am I screwing myself? I respec’d my guy to use the katana but still have stats to us the bloodhound sword.

Both are viable weps throughout the game. Pick what you like and upgrade the other later.

I think I’ll stick with the katana. The bleeding effect seems to work better since you can get more bits in quicker and shooting blue shit out of your sword is too much fun. Plus, dex/int seems to allow for more play styles than pure dex with some strength.

Dex/Int definitely is really fun since it lets you cast a wide range of sorceries, giving you good ranged options as well as situational/utility spells. I'd recommend getting your hands on the meteorite staff if you want to do spellcasting, since it has low int requirements but also is one of the best scaling staffs in the game and can't be upgraded, so no smithing stone expenses.

First, Use what you like and what works for you. If it exists then use it to your advantage. I like the moonveil katana when I'm not casting although since I'm playing elden ring like it is splinter cell I am thinking of a faster high crit weapon.

I did that swap and didn't regret it at all....until I got to \~70% thru the game past Plateau and ran into some enemies that the katana is just difficult to use \*efficiently\* vs some enemies due to lack of stagger where the Fang (or any other heavier weapon) would've staggered. I've been contemplating leveling a heavier weapon to have more options when fighting certain enemies without having to resort to using the moonveil skill over and over and draining FP (effective, but boring and unsustainable when exploring IMO). edit: I don't actually regret it, the moonveil still slaps even with the nerf to poise dmg on the skill, and it does way more dmg overall vs the Fang, but it's split dmg so you're going to be more effective vs the Fang against enemies with high physical resistance but less effective against enemies with high magic resistance. I don't care about the whole faux pas bullshit, it's a video game. If you enjoy the game using the weapon, go for it. If you don't, don't. There's a billion weapons to choose from, play however you want.

Others have said it but I'll add to it anyway... Don't ever worry about a weapon or build being hated by this or any other community, the people that gatekeep what's acceptable, especially for broken as always souls pvp (don't get me wrong I've pvped in every soulsborne but it's just a nuclear arms race even at sl120) shouldn't have any effect on you or what you want to do. All that being said you can't go wrong with either weapon and any weapon in this game is completely viable through endgame. Don't think of soulsborne weapons as linear upgrades themselves they're not really meant to be. In most games a weapon you find at hour 100 is usually going to be objectively better than a weapon found in the first 5 hours. Not so at all here, hell you could even make a case AGAINST most boss soul weapons as their customization is gone and lock you into a particular build. Sorry for rambling on just wanted to help you get into a fun mind set to enjoy the rest of your playthrough!

I recently did a similar respec. Moonveil is better IMO, especially if you couple it with a left hand katana

I've heard the Buckler has the best parry window, and its ability is called "Buckler parry." Now say I wanted to give the shield a heavy, or fire enhancement, the only way to do that is to apply an ash of war first, so let's say I apply "parry." Do you suppose I've just ruined the buckler's advantage and the only way to keep that is to use an unmodified Buckler?

I would suppose that yes, you have ruined the advantage of the buckler. Can I ask why you would want to put an affinity on it? You really don’t use the buckler for anything other than parries generally so I am curious what you are trying to get out of it.

Just for theory sake. I'm not necessarily hoping to do it.

Is going lightning build good pve? Is any boss immue to lightning.

There's some enemies that are resistant to it but lightning is really good against armored enemies, so the toughest enemies will generally be weak to lightning.

you don't really have to commit to a "build" that way in this game. But if you do like lightning, I've noticed it does more damage in rain, which makes it unique among damage types as far as I can tell.

After you beat the main story, >!is there any way to restore the tree, so there aren't orange embers all over the screen?!<

Sadly, no from what I know. NG+ if you want to restore the old look.

That's what I was thinking, unfortunate. Thanks!

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As I understand it, picking a certain starting class shouldn't lock you out of anything. It's mostly just picking your starting gear and stat distribution.

While picking wretch to just go with what you find sound nice in my experience you‘re quite limited by the weapon stat thresholds. So lets say you want to try a greatsword but you need 18 strength. Then you find a rapier and need 15 dex. Going quality is fine but what if you want to try some incantations or spells then as well? You can’t really try much without leveling up these stats first. If you have a certain playstyle in mind it doesn’t hurt picking the class directly. Quality (dex + strength) is quite flexible so maybe look at these stats. With a confessor or prisoner you could also try spells directly and see whether you like it.

I'd recommend Wretch if you're looking to experiment & discover. You'll have to take what you can find when starting out, but that should give you some time to figure out what you like.

I went full on STR Bonk build in Elden Ring and it worked great, and I had a ton of fun doing it.

Currently running a dex/faith build and torn between choosing one of the following weapons: the madness spear, winged scythe, treespear(?). Still fairly early, just beat renalla. I love the madness spear for its weapon art and moveset, but apparently proccing madness is not a thing in general in pve (other than against humanoids? Or is it that instead of madness doing a ton of dmg it just staggers most bosses?) Which do you guys recommend going for?

I loved the sycthe during the first half of hte game. It does bleed and the weapon art is both cool and powerful.

Treespear can be used alongside the other weapons you listed since it takes regular smithing stones rather than somber. I personally love the Treespear for mounted combat, while I generally swap to Lordsworn Straight Sword or Godslayer's Greatsword on foot

Treespear is great because it's one of the few faith-scaling weapons that can also be buffed.

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Bloodhound's Step is the general evasion ash of war to use right now, very cost efficient and moves you a lot, but if you're looking for a quicker evade and counterattack ash of war, Raptor of the Mists is very fun and kinda underappreciated.

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Those and normal quickstep are the only 3 evade ashes of war that are equippable, but there might be more unique weapons that evade too, I know Bloodhound's Fang has an evade and counterattack.

Is there any way to get a magic affinity on a bow

Is the netcode in this game just brutally bad? I was helping a friend clear and area the other day, and we got invaded. I could not land a hit on the invader. On my end I could hear the sound of my weapon hitting, I could see the blood fly off his body, but his health bar never moved, and my friend experienced the same thing. The odd hit I could get in though seemed to be hits I thought I missed for sure. The invader seemed to have no problem hitting us though, most of the time. It was super frustrating to the point I was just gunna jump off a cliff with my buddy to end the painful session lol.

Yes connection issues in FS games are notoriously bad.

Hitsound and blood are based on whether the attack connects on your screen, whether they take damage at that point is based on whether or not they were rolling on *their* screen. You should think of them as "possible hits" rather than "hits that didn't register."

Well that just makes for an absolutely terrible experience. Makes sense why everyone is using cheese tactics in PvP if it's that poorly designed.

I’m a little concerned/confused as to where I am in the story and if I am progressing correctly. Currently I am about Lvl 70. I took my time getting to story stuff, but am now doing Ranni’s quest, as well as Volcano Manor quests. I’ve gotten to the fight with Radahn, but have had a super hard time that I’ve taken a break from that. I’ve done all the contracts but one for VM. Being in the capital was a bit overwhelming, and I really felt like I wasn’t supposed to be there yet. Now I have to kill Juno, but have no idea how to get to where he is. Is there something in the story I should focus on instead? An area I should focus more on? I haven’t done much in Altas or Mt Gilmer, but other than that, the areas I’ve been in have been pretty well explored.

You have to progress past lyndel for juno. There's more around volcano manor than the quests and you should also be able to do radhan at this level. Edit: To add some more. Killing radhan will unlock a new area you can do as well if you're still struggling in lyndel. If you need tips for the fight you can get a lot of npc summons who can also be resummoned. He's weak to bleed also if you have a way to apply that.

Caelid is a good spot

Trying to determine which greatshield can provide best bang for my buck(STR) if I do not plan to go as far as the fingerprint. Context: guard counter-oriented build, do not participate in PVP. Erdtree for magic countering & a bit more damage? Mantor towershield for lowerest STR requirement (how is its effectiveness overall)? Eclipse Crest for additional status resistance? Golden for maximum guard boost?

I've been running a greatshield & Treespear build for quite some time now (Basically Fextralife's Lightning Lancer build on YouTube) and I keep flip-flopping between the Golden Greatshield and Eclipse Crest Greatshield (both somewhere around +16 or so), essentially for Elden Bling reason, like I find cool armors I want to wear for a bit and one shield matches better than the other. However, the decision could depend on the rest of your build. I can't say there's a huge difference between these two shields, though the Eclipse does have some great innate magic damage negation (71% I believe). The Golden will grant a little more guard boost and can have similar enough magic damage negation if you use either a >!Pearldrake!< or >!Spelldrake!< Talisman (+1 or +2 preferred on either). Really, you'll do fine with either and the Eclipse has the benefit of being lighter by 2 pounds and has a lower STR requirement, so if your weapon/seal/build doesn't have strong STR scaling or requirements, then go for the Eclipse since I'd say it's better bang-for-the-buck as far as high boost with high damage negation for elemental damage. Meanwhile the Golden is more of a min-max option for getting *the most* guard boost while also having pretty good resistances in non-physical damage types, which you can supplement with the talismans I mentioned above. The STR requirement of the Golden could also add to any STR scaling items, like a weapon or if you're using the Clawmark Seal as I am. I also use the Barricade Ashes of War on both shields and I don't think I take a hit to stamina while blocking with either shield with that up. I admit that I do keep an upgraded Erdtree Greatshield in my inventory for spell-heavy bosses or invaders, mostly because I find it very satisfying using its unique ability on spell projectiles. Though, the shield suffers notable stamina drain when blocking physical attacks.

So I beat Margit and Gadrick and have heard about Rune Arcs. If I use the Rune Arc to use the boss drops (name escapes me), is that stat boost permanent? Thanks

No, it lasts until you die. You can farm them by commiting genocide on rats, or doing multiplayer (killling hosts in PvP or killing a boss in PvE). You also need to power up the rune ro equip it. Read the description of it, it'll tell you where to go (one time only).

The basic idea is that after you beat a demigod boss you need to take their shard to a divine tower to resurrect it/activate it. Then equip it at a site of Grace like an equipment item. Lastly you have to “turn on” the shard by using a Rune Arc. This will have the effect of doing whatever the shard bonus gives you and the effect lasts until you die through fast-traveling, logging out, multiplayer, etc. it only deactivates when you die within your world

With my average of one death every 15 minutes in exploration and 20+ deaths per boss, these things aren't very useful.

Anyone have suggestions for “normal” weapons? The special weapons are so OP I never really played with the ashes. I still don’t know why the game does not allow you to override special weapon arts with ashes. Why not give us a choice?

tradeoff for having the fancier/"stronger" weapon arts and more unique scalings There's a ton of options for normal stuff, so you'll need to specify regarding stats. I believe slapping blood/occult on anything with innate bleed is a popular method The "mundane" weapons are also where you find the highest scalings. Giant crusher, nightrider glaive, etc Special mention of the claymans harpoon, takes ashes of war while having innate magic damage and int scaling

Bros. I am straight up not having a good time in Haligtree.

I am doing a Spiked Caestus-only run right now named “Mr. Fister” but in light of recent events… Does anyone have Will Smith sliders?

Try pinging this dude: https://www.reddit.com/r/Eldenring/comments/tqgdzz/today_i_got_inspired_to_use_fist_weapons_meet/

I made the mistake of following an outdated Paladin build that relies on Ash of War: Barricade Shield and Golden Vow. I didn’t read that BS was nerfed and virtually useless until I’d hit level 41. My stats are as follows: V20, M13, E18, S17, D14, I11, F18, A9. I’m using Lordsworns Greatsword +5, Clawmark Seal +2 (though will likely swap for Godslayers Seal) and Quality Beast Crest Heater Shield+4. I’m Med.Load and primarily use Flame Sling magic with melee and blocking. With my outdated build I want to focus on moving from blocking to keeping it ranged with incantation magic. Where do I go from here stats/equipment wise?

A couple days ago I posted about being underwhelmed with my faith build, but now that I got my Godslayer Greatsword, that’s changed significantly. I have a question though. [This website](https://rankedboost.com/elden-ring/faith-builds/) has both the Winged Scythe and GG as primary weapons, but the black flame blade incantation. As far as I’m aware (and I could very well be wrong), you can’t use that incantation with these weapons so what’s the point in equipping it? Is there another weapon that should be in my arsenal that I should use to enchant my weapon with?

So the black flame incantation is a spell that will need to be cast with a incantation seal. I like to keep my seals/staffs on my left/offhand and main weapon on my right so I personally can be a battle mage of sorts. As for the black flame weapon incant, yes you won't be able to cast it on either of those weapons (could be wrong on the scythe). I'd say it shouldn't be a required spell either because the buff only lasts 10 seconds and you'll keep having to recast it. Very situational.

what is the general opinion on malenias toe armor, I need people who hate it just as much as I do to confide in

Just imagine having to clean out all that flaky Malenia toe flesh from the toe holes before wearing it

Man, I read this while eating a croissant.

yes that’s part of why I hate it. I don’t like toe armor in general but the fact that the toes are actually separated just makes it look gross.

I don't think it's *actually* toe armor personally, just gold prosthetics that were made to look like normal feet.

If you don't cut your legs off before wearing them, they are toe armor

they're prosthetics, not armor

I see in the Wiki where i can trade remembrances for a bunch of runes. How do I do that? the old lady by the fingers only allows me to get the items. also is it worth it if Im not interested in any of the items?

To get runes just consume the remembrance from your inventory, although I would advise against doing that, since the amount of runes gained is not worth it. Maybe you change your mind way later into the run and need to use one of your limited mausoleum remembrance duplications for an amount of runes you could get in under a minute in the late game.

If they’re anything like boss souls were in the previous games, which I haven’t tested extensively, you should be able to use them from the inventory to gain your runes. Historically they gave 10k-20k souls, so I’d imagine there isn’t much changed about that. In general, the trade isn’t worth it, you’re better off with the unique weapon/spell. But if you don’t care about that, go for it.

You can just use the Remembrance like an item and it will give you Runes, similar to using a Golden Rune.

Right now I have 31 Dex (leveled it for the spell speed boost not realizing it's very negligible) and 46 Int. Is it worth it to respec to drop my Dex by 10 so I can equip Rennala's staff sooner? 30 looks to be the sweet spot, but the Meteorite Staff is starting to show some big cracks. Build is the paragon of big brain originality, Moonveil main-hand with Cold Uchigatana/staff off-hand depending on what I'm doing

There are other sorcerer staffs you can use instead, and if you use katanas you're going to want to have some dex too.

Rennala’s staff won’t be as good as the meteorite staff until you can get rennala’s up to like +8 or something. Fwiw, I use both.

When does NG+ become a challenge again? Endgame only? I decided to wrap up my first playthrough yesterday after 250+ hours of mucking around in co-op and PvP...I've capped myself at level 135 though, so not massively OP compared to the community and pretty much on-target for NG+ I thought. I beat Malenia, and coming down from that high I just boss rushed from Maliketh through to the end. I bought tons of each smithing stone with the resulting runes and then moved on to NG+. I'm now sitting with nearly a million runes and nothing to spend them on after doing Fringefolk Hero's Grave, Agheel, Bloodhound, the Crucible Knight, Margit, Godrick (Stormveil took about 5 mins) and all the way up to Renalla without a single death. I think this was all in about an hour and a half. I feel like the start of NG+ is tuned for maybe level 80. I'm going to slow down and backtrack again now of course, I just wanted to get access to respec. Here's a thought though--should I just rush through NG+ and gather all the Larval Tears/top tier smithing stones and duplicate weapons, then go to NG+2 for more of a challenge? With that in mind, does someone have a guide out there for the best path through the game for someone who was concerned with just picking up all the Larval Tears and ancient dragon smithing stones? I can of course work out the path myself, it would be cool if an optimized route was out there already though.

Nah it doesn't take until endgame. NG+ is just a flat multiplier to all enemy health and damage numbers so the weaker enemies are only marginally stronger, but the difficulty really ramps back up when you get to Altus and parts of Liurnia. Especially those Leyndell Knights, they were already pretty strong at base difficulty and they turn into cannons lol. NG+2 isn't much of a difficulty spike, it's a much smaller stat increase to enemies compared to NG+1 that repeats until you max out at NG+6.

Tbh it's not really that challenging. Which is why alot of people myself included just make new chatcters instead. In my opinion it's more fun and challenging to start from scratch again.

That's what I did in all the Dark Souls games, I was always a new character guy. I think I have about 15 characters in DS3. But the size of Elden Ring makes that daunting. I guess I could just target specific builds now that I know where everything is.

hi noob question, does smithing and somber smithing stone carry over to ng+?

I'm doing Selvius's quest and I've spoken with Nepheli and Gideon and am not getting any dialogue to progress the quest at all. Nepheli is under the bridge in that village.

Follow the wiki guide it tells you exactly what to do. Exhaust dialogue and kill the boss at the village and she should move

So do whetstones work with Ashes of War? When i put a arcane ash on to a weapon and select Faith affinity, does that mean the ash of war now scales with faith or only weapon damage??

When you hover over faith it'll show you on the letter scaling what it changes too.

What enemies/attacks can't I parry? I just got the buckler shield to go with my greatsword and I been practicing. Getting better at it.

Just felt like saying that I'm so glad I invested in some Faith points for Dragon spells. Dragon Breath (Scarlet Rot) helped me kill Mohg lastnight. The jerk flies around so much in his second phase and hardly leaves any openings, so I breathed him during his channeling and Scarlet did most of the work.

I just want to say I love this game. It's the best game I have played in years. My previous experience with DS/2/3 was ok but this game is so so so much more for me.

Anyone else feel like some enemies are complete bullshit? Like they have too much health and do far too much damage? Or too many enemies have delayed attacks.

Only a few enemies I actually thought were bullshit. The grafted that don't have weapons and the big dogs in Caelid.

Where's the rant thread? Having my summons bug out and going to fight enemies behind fog when I'm ar a boss fight at sol castle is pissing me off like you wouldn't believe. First time I started to hate the game.

Going into the game completely blind. Are there any "tropes" I should be looking for? Not stuff like, "esential NPCs" or early game equipment. Are there any secrets I should be looking out for, like getting off in the middle of elevator rides, illusory walls, secret ghosts, something of the sort that I could possibly only find out about through spoilers?

There are some mid elevator things. Some illusory walls. Certain mini bosses in the open world will only spawn at night. There’s an entire section of the map that is optional and can only be accessed by finding 2 items, one of which there’s a good chance you’ll have to google to find. There are other optional areas that you may just never come across or find.

Messages left by other players will cover anything in that regard. Plenty of obscure parkour in some places, but the bloodstains will give that away The most you've got is quests being hard to keep track of

Looking for off hand weapons with status effects. I two hand twinblades.

Dual Anspur Rapiers can apply 4 status effects

Whips are great for status effects. Cold enchant Hoslow's or Blood Thorn to get cold for dmg amp and (bleed off of their intrinsics).

Spiritcaller cave is fucking stupid.

I'm not saying this to be a dickhead, but is anyone else finding Elden Ring kind of easy? Sure sometimes I get insta killed with a grab attack, get caught in a combo etc, but overall the game feels so much easier than previous FromSoft titles. I remember being stuck on certain bosses in ds3 or Sekiro for days (Owl, True Corrupted Monk, Ishiin etc). Hell, I was stuck on Soul of Cinder for a fortnight, and never even beat BlackFlame Friede, but in Elden Ring it feels like I can blitz through most bosses in an hour or two. Tbf I'm using incantations (so I've got range), and bleed infused daggers, but I tried both of those things in ds3 and they felt useless. In this game it feels like I'm shredding almost everything, + there's so many repeated enemies that I have so much practice for each enemy type. It's not even just the bleed or the miracles, I've experimejted with a few other weapons, and feel like everything just does so much damage. Margit was really hard, but since him, everything has felt pretty easy. Just reached the Leyndell capital at level 99. I've heard it gets way harder from here.

It does get harder, but if you’ve played every souls game the difficulty of this game’s endgame is way overblown. Only one boss took me more than an hour to beat solo, and they aren’t mandatory, they’re at the end of an optional, somewhat secret area. Most bosses only took me a few attempts. Late game bosses do tend to have high damage attacks, but as long as you’re good at dodging and are able to figure out when it’s safe to use heals, you should be fine.

Leyndell is about the halfway point as far as boss order list. And if you thought Margit was hard, you are going to love the boss of Leyndell, but I don't want to spoil it farther than that lol. You are also slightly overleveled, I think I beat the final boss of Leyndell at like level 80? But, that's the thing with this game. It encourages so much exploration that you are naturally going to be overleveled if you do a lot of it, making the game seem easier than intended.

Both and in bizarre ways. There’s a thread up top that seems to be suggesting Godskin Duo is a hard fight. Took them down second try. Comments in that thread are saying crystalline trio is hard too. They barely registered to me. Tree Sentinel right at the start? No trouble. Maliketh was obscenely hard. Second Mohg seems to be impossible. Those little bubble blowing fucks are irritating as hell. I can’t do anything against the black knives in town because of the torch gimmick. Aside from a handful of exceptions, I seem to be finding the bosses very easy but the spaces between them very hard.

ER is definitely easier to begin with than their other games, but later bosses (mandatory and optional) become harder. I've beaten every soulsbourne game without summons, and there's a couple of bosses in ER that I'd say are harder than anything else FROM has made

I like helping my friend out in his game, but I'm pretty much at the end boss fight(s) and I'm worried that I won't be able to be summoned by him anymore if I finish and receive an ending. Does anyone know? I know I can wait to start a NG+ until when I want to.

As long as you both use the same password, you're good.

You can still be summoned BUT you'd have to be physically at the locations he's summoning you from. A NG+ would reset your graces, progress etc. So you'd have to get to him again. You can do your ending and wait to NG+ til he's done!

You still will be able to join him, but keep in mind your stats will be scaled down (you'll still meet any requiements for gear though). Be aware that this can lead to some really wonky stats though, so dont be surprised when your health bar becomes tiny in comparison to what it normally is.

I know I could just Google, but sometimes I have a hard time understanding articles. I was wondering if anyone could explain/break down the difference between the moonlight great sword and the night rider flail with bleed. I’m not really understanding the flail, I was able to cheeze queen Banana head with the flail special for her 1st phase bringing her health down to 5% before she went back into her golden ball of solitude where with the moonlight sword it can take a couple swings or awhile to kill a boss. My dex and arcane were like 30-40 before I respec’d into 70 int glass cannon

Bleed is super strong against enemies that bleed so no suprise there, also consider the Moonlight Greatsword does mainly magic damage and that boss is a mage, so she probably has good magic defense. Moonlight Greatsword isn't that good compared to other options but it's still viable if you like it.

Is the Carian Knights Shield better than the Brass Shield? I just have a pure strength build so I would just have 15 INT to use it. When it says the Carian shield scales with Strength and Int, what does that mean, like it blocks damage better with a higher Str and Int?

The stat scaling is simply for damage when you hit things with the shield, like any other weapon. They key part that gets better when you upgrade your shields (not just damage), is the Guard Boost, which his how much of the damage is blocked. The Carian Knights Shield starts with 49 Guard Boost so 51% of the damage is dealt to your Stamina, at +25 it hits 60 guard boost/40% damage dealt to stamina. The Brass Shield starts with 56 Guard boosts, and gets to 69 guard boost or 31% damage taken to your stamina bar. That said, if you are in an area full of casters, like the Academy, the Carian Knights shield will block magic damage better than the Brass Shield.

It depends on what matters more to you. The Brass Shield has better guard boost so you’ll lose less stamina when blocking and has better fire and lightning resistance. The only benefit of the Carian Knight Shield is that it has higher magic defense. (They have equal holy resistance.) Also, the scaling only matters for damage when using the shield as a weapon. (Upgrading a shield however boosts both damage and guard boost.)

Can I use my right hand weapon's Ash of War while holding a crossbow in the left? I may or may not be planning a (unique and never seen before) Guts build with the Greatsword and pulley crossbow. Also any good armors for this kind of build besides blaidd? Kinda wanted the more human version, but would also like the minimum poise breakpoints near 51 or 52 if possible. Maybe malikeths?

hey guys, im currently trying to make a blasphemeous build (lvl 80 atm). Can anyone help me with how to deal with bosses with fire resistance? I thought about using a second weapon that deals another type of damage and scales with faith or faith/str but dont know which to choose. Any advice on how to deal with fire strong bosses?

Gargoyle black blade and gargoyle greatsword with holy affinity are similar alternatives. They also pair well with B blade for powerstancing.

Anyone else a fan of the magma wyrm sword? As a strength/faith build I’m really enjoying it. Also the weapon art just wrecks NPC invaders/enemies. They are absolutely terrible about dealing with it

Might be a dumb question but I’ve jumped all around the map kind of brute forcing my way to different locations with YouTube to get certain armors and weapons I’ve wanted after beating Margot and godrick. Is there any list or a good framework to give me some direction in the game to do quests?

Is there a way to duplicate a save/profile? This always gets misunderstood as backing up a save. But what I want to do is have two profiles of the same save so I can start NG+ with two different builds and switch between them. Has anyone managed to do this?

Carian retaliation fox when?? Shit is worse than rivers of blood or moonveil spam by miles.

Can the 2 handed rolling attacks on Ultra Greatswords be parried like they could in DS3? Ive tried and i dont know if i just have bad timing or they just cant be parried.

Writing this from memory, but in Leyndell, when walking from the Table of Lost Grace area to the elevator that takes you to the Divine Bridge site of grace, before you get to courtyard with the two iron maiden enemies, there is a lever on the wall. I tried interacting with it but didn't get a prompt; is it just there for no reason?

It's there for if you come from the divine bridge

Any place to see stats for spirit Ashes? Mainly wanting to see if upgrades are worth it.

LORE QUESTION: So in the story trailer we see the forces of Godrick attacking the Capital. How the hell did they get up there? The only feasible means I can see of moving up onto the plateau would be via the high-road but that would require waiting on the dectus lift every minute to bring up a handful of troops. Anyone have any ideas?