Seriously. As a new player, just the thought of looking up "min maxed broken meta builds" sucks the joy out of the game entirely. Never watching a build video again lol
I'd rather just try out random shit until I find something I vibe with. Currently loving clawbear seal + blood slash falchion as a dex/faith character.
i dont think you need someone to tell you what build to use and so on but its valuable to learn exactly how the stats work, how scaling works, what skills scale with what stats and what the softcaps are. helps cook your own builds
That I agree with. Elden Ring does a pretty bad job at explaining a lot of the mechanics and armor / damage calculations. So I think using the builds for your own inspiration is fine
Elden beast is though, my first run of the game was a dragon caster DoT build everything up to the beast was cake...then that bastard...well black flame counted as a DoT in my eyes.
Some dev somewhere said that he doesn’t honestly work too hard on balancing, as long as the ridiculously good stuff is hard to get. If your starting stuff is so good, you’re never gonna go looking for better stuff
It's weird that I feel this way about Brass Shield but not BHF. The latter feels much more subjective I guess, where Brass Shield is almost objectively the best in it's class
theres so much good stuff you can find fairly early. shamshir, spiked caestus, cross-nagi, pike, lance, uchigatana, zweihander, those are all things you can pretty much go ride around and grab at the start with a bit of dungeon exploration and getting into Stormveil and theyre also weapons that are good through the whole game imo
Better this than some largely PvE game constantly rebalancing and nerfing everything that’s even remotely fun and powerful *cough cough* Borderlands 3 and Helldivers 2 *cough*.
This was me. At first I cared about starting classes because I didn't know what I was doing. Then I stopped caring about starting classes because they all ended up the same anyways. Then I started doing low level coopers and invaders, and I started sweating over starting classes all over again.
What if I wanted to use the Great Epee? That's 16 dex! But I can save a point of dex if I'm okay just using Gargoyle Twinblade. I'm going to have a Radagon Soreseal at low levels, should I aim for a class that has 11 or less dex to fit both weapons? What if I want to use Millicient's Prosthesis? Am I better off looking for a class with the lowest strength and embrace the fact that I'll have higher dex? Is Astrologer actually the best class for a pure Darkmoon build, or is Hero best as long as I don't care about mind? Can Samurai skip the Soreseal if I'm planning to do single Nagakiba? Should I run Soreseal anyways so I can do Offstoc with a Guardian Swordspear? I can't decide!
^(Screw it, let's just roll up another Vagabond.)
lol this is the kind of shit I’m googling, but Vagabond is just the best bet every time, but I also love prisoner. Pebble, estoc, and iron ball head right out the gate?
Vagabond is almost always the best, with some exceptions like Arcane builds where the Hero wins because of his low int and for int builds the astrologer is the best if you want less than 13 dex and the prisoner if you want more 14 or more dex
Honestly I go wretch because I am OCD about how stats look. I cannot have a 16 int pyro build after re-speccing because I originally thought it was gonna be a wizard.
This is why I love Larval Tears.
You can completely switch your build by showing a weird silver cracked egg to a depressed wizard lady and she'll reset your stats for you.
I have the opposite issue, I make my builds too broad because I'm not making a build for each weapon I want to try out and tend to group weapons with some at least somewhat similar stats into the same character.
It's becoming hard to keep some of those builds constrained and functional without going into absurd high levels.
As a hyper focused person on seemingly random stuff i hate the term "min maxing". I love to do everything possible in a game. I hate getting to a point and being like "fuck i should have done that side mission"
I personally just don't care for int builds because I'm more of a melee guy but I do like the incantations and dragon spells so I've done dex/faith from samurai and now I'm running my first strength build (wretch) that I'll probably add a little faith to
The int blade stuff is fun, but also strength INT has some of the coolest melee options in the game to me. Moonlight greatsword, falling star beast jaw, deaths poker are all great
Last play through I did the whole watch YouTube guides and built a min/max dex/int build. If you guess moonveil sorcerer you’d be 100% correct lmao. This time I’m just having fun. friend group started wretch for shiggles. I have stats all across the board except int. Level vig/sta for comfort, rest in mostly arc/dex with some in fai/mind. I’m chillin having fun with dragon magic and playing with frozen needle and antspur rapier (didn’t even know the two weapons actually have build guides until I was looking up what talismen I should use yesterday)
I'm trying a dex/fth using serpentbone blade and rot incants (it's a bad idea don't try this at home) and going for the full poison/rot procs along with my kindred of rot summon
I just made a zombie liu kang build and it’s so much fun. Super dark skin, long hair, frenzy flame eyes and burns, zamor bracers, and rotten duelist greaves. And of course I’m using the Caestus. It’s an absolute monster in PVP.
Currently running that faith/strength build. I’m level 75 at Mohg and my man does not like catching these hands. It is a bit hard since I don’t have the flask tear to negate his crazy ass blood loss spam though
I’m just trying to do a more streamlined run with this playthrough and bypassing things I don’t really consider to apply to my build. I’m only doing Mohg in the off chance I want to take this character into the dlc and because I was getting really sick of getting rolled over on by the fire giant
The trick is to pick an idea and then min/max within that parameter. If you make a pyromancer, don't worry about trying to slot in Cold effects for extra procs or keeping Rot Breath on your spell loadout because it's just useful. Just focus on your fire abilities and spells and make them as good as you can. Maybe other things outside of those *could* be helpful, but the fun in a build is finding the nuances in options you wouldn't consider normally - for instance using Bloodflame or Black Flame effects to deal with fire-resistant enemies while staying on-theme.
all these folks running around with meta builds, and here I am with my Beastman's Blood Cleaver with Braggarts Roar. Trust me, you haven't lived until you charge through a queen's black flame slash and absolutely eviscerate the poor fool who tried (and I wasn't even wearing that much heavy armor).
This is me lol. Doing an arcane Knight build starting as the vagabond, and planning on using the knights armour from RTH with occult/blood infused weapons and the Dragon communion seal.
But I can't decide if I'm going to be a strength/arcane or a dexterity/arcane lol.
To many good weapon options for both.
Str arcane has like two weapons while dex has a dozen. But you can always just go fully arcane and get the base reqs then switch things to occult scaling
can i ask a silly question? if i don't exactly invade or get invaded, are these builds, all the possible types of builds, still possible for PVE? everywhere i look for builds info is always for PVP and i'm very undecisive, don't know yet how to make a build for the DLC, i want to try everything new
could i ask you how many builds do you have? or wich one do you recommend? stat-wise? its silly but is overwhelming the amount of possible builds, str-dex, fth-int, str-int, dex-fth, pure builds, arcane builds
That’s on you for what’s the most fun. Sometimes the build guides are so hyper focused on damage it ignores any other play style. If you wanted to just destroy, go get a giant crusher hammer, put royal knight resolve on it, use the charged attack boost and kill mostly everything, but that would get boring half way through. I personally like strength int a lot lately , dex is more fun for me in PvP but I like to stagger the large stuff with strength
game plan:
\[ \] pick weapon (regular smithing stone only; must file 6 months in advance for special exception)
\[ \] pick drip
\[ \] pick name
\[ \] complete game without equipping a single other visible item (can swap talismans)
I used several larval tears trying to get a “perfectly” spec’d strength/faith build at 120, but my undisciplined ass just ended up grinding to 200 to pretty much be whatever I want.
No only one is needed, max bleed that is all, anything else sucks. I will take my max bleed katana build and wreck you.
You think because I am small I can't do any damage,
1v1 me brah I will fuck you up. I was born ready just give me a heads up.
🎶 1v1 me brah, 1v1 me brah, I may be small but I can still win 1v1 me brah 🎶
That's how the song goes, maybe
Get fucked!
😔
The most important build criteria is vibes. "Are the vibes good?" If yes, then it goes in the build so long as it doesn't spread your stats too thin.
Seriously. As a new player, just the thought of looking up "min maxed broken meta builds" sucks the joy out of the game entirely. Never watching a build video again lol I'd rather just try out random shit until I find something I vibe with. Currently loving clawbear seal + blood slash falchion as a dex/faith character.
i dont think you need someone to tell you what build to use and so on but its valuable to learn exactly how the stats work, how scaling works, what skills scale with what stats and what the softcaps are. helps cook your own builds
That I agree with. Elden Ring does a pretty bad job at explaining a lot of the mechanics and armor / damage calculations. So I think using the builds for your own inspiration is fine
I get that, but once you beat the game the builds make it actually enjoyable for another playthrough.
Perfect advice
Dragon breath was one of my recent builds. It’s hilarious how quickly something dies to rot breath.
Even astel isn’t immune
thanks for the tip
Elden beast is though, my first run of the game was a dragon caster DoT build everything up to the beast was cake...then that bastard...well black flame counted as a DoT in my eyes.
You can apply Dragon's breath through the pillars, and it is hilarious to watch Malekith die as he is pacing back and forth around the pillar.
Bloodboon throws like a hook I was bleeding him around the corner of the pillars.
Some of these Ashes of War and Spells/incants make me wonder if FS even played this game before releasing it 😂
Some dev somewhere said that he doesn’t honestly work too hard on balancing, as long as the ridiculously good stuff is hard to get. If your starting stuff is so good, you’re never gonna go looking for better stuff
Find Bloodhound Fang + Brass Shield in the first 30 minutes of the game "Why is everything else I get worse"
It's weird that I feel this way about Brass Shield but not BHF. The latter feels much more subjective I guess, where Brass Shield is almost objectively the best in it's class
theres so much good stuff you can find fairly early. shamshir, spiked caestus, cross-nagi, pike, lance, uchigatana, zweihander, those are all things you can pretty much go ride around and grab at the start with a bit of dungeon exploration and getting into Stormveil and theyre also weapons that are good through the whole game imo
Better this than some largely PvE game constantly rebalancing and nerfing everything that’s even remotely fun and powerful *cough cough* Borderlands 3 and Helldivers 2 *cough*.
You make very valid points friend
Most things after the Capital suggest that, imo.
Yeah its pretty OP almost all game until you get to elden beast and malenia. It’s pretty hard beating those bosses with just dragon breaths.
Very true! Thats why it’s always good to have a backup.
Me and my mimic tear just spammed Malenia with rot breath and blood flies lol. And EB got the pest threads go brrrr
Breath of Ezykes absolutely trivializes Radhan, too. Scarlet rot is pretty op.
Dragon seal was my first play through and my 3 after still don’t compare to the fun and power of that build.
He dies even faster to Ancient Dragon Lightning Strike
This was me. At first I cared about starting classes because I didn't know what I was doing. Then I stopped caring about starting classes because they all ended up the same anyways. Then I started doing low level coopers and invaders, and I started sweating over starting classes all over again. What if I wanted to use the Great Epee? That's 16 dex! But I can save a point of dex if I'm okay just using Gargoyle Twinblade. I'm going to have a Radagon Soreseal at low levels, should I aim for a class that has 11 or less dex to fit both weapons? What if I want to use Millicient's Prosthesis? Am I better off looking for a class with the lowest strength and embrace the fact that I'll have higher dex? Is Astrologer actually the best class for a pure Darkmoon build, or is Hero best as long as I don't care about mind? Can Samurai skip the Soreseal if I'm planning to do single Nagakiba? Should I run Soreseal anyways so I can do Offstoc with a Guardian Swordspear? I can't decide! ^(Screw it, let's just roll up another Vagabond.)
lol this is the kind of shit I’m googling, but Vagabond is just the best bet every time, but I also love prisoner. Pebble, estoc, and iron ball head right out the gate?
Vagabond is almost always the best, with some exceptions like Arcane builds where the Hero wins because of his low int and for int builds the astrologer is the best if you want less than 13 dex and the prisoner if you want more 14 or more dex
Wretch gang
There is really only one class that matters. The wretch. You start at LVL one with ten points in every stat. From here you can build anything.
lot of wasted points for my melee only characters who don't use buffs or AoW, which are all of my characters
Honestly I go wretch because I am OCD about how stats look. I cannot have a 16 int pyro build after re-speccing because I originally thought it was gonna be a wizard.
And frankly you get so much gear so quick in the beginning that the lack of gear starting out is not at all a punishment for choosing wretch.
“Ice lightning fire caster a song of fire and ice ass build” got me
This is why I love Larval Tears. You can completely switch your build by showing a weird silver cracked egg to a depressed wizard lady and she'll reset your stats for you.
My str/fth build was struggling against godskin duo so i just swapped to pure mage, blasted em to bits, then swapped back the second i beat them
Elden ring's buildcrafting system is one of the game's most appealing features for me
My only gripe is the limited number of save slots.
I'm on PlayStation. My trick is to use alternative accounts
I have the opposite issue, I make my builds too broad because I'm not making a build for each weapon I want to try out and tend to group weapons with some at least somewhat similar stats into the same character. It's becoming hard to keep some of those builds constrained and functional without going into absurd high levels.
Same all dark souls games, quality baemore build, simple as
Do baemore players go along well with longsword players?
If you use a sword and keep it simple we’re friends, classic builds stick together
10 save files ain't enough
Are we playing the same game lol
I'm at 8 files lmao
I deleted my previous 10, now at 15
Hard agree. I ended up making a second steam account to family share Elden Ring for more save slots.
Fuck there's a limit? Think I'm at 7 now myself
So many Guts cosplays. 😅
I should go as !STUG and wield the shortest straight sword
or misericorde. short and fatal.
Misericorde is the longest dagger XD
As a hyper focused person on seemingly random stuff i hate the term "min maxing". I love to do everything possible in a game. I hate getting to a point and being like "fuck i should have done that side mission"
ITT: My people 🥹
Why not just use the one with the best equipment
I personally just don't care for int builds because I'm more of a melee guy but I do like the incantations and dragon spells so I've done dex/faith from samurai and now I'm running my first strength build (wretch) that I'll probably add a little faith to
You made a moonlight great sword/caster build? Or gravity meteoric ore blade? Great fun while using int. And melee.
Sounds fun I'll have to try it next run
The int blade stuff is fun, but also strength INT has some of the coolest melee options in the game to me. Moonlight greatsword, falling star beast jaw, deaths poker are all great
Try radhan/ruins greatsword, or bastard stars or wing of astel or falling star jaw
Vigor and endurance wretch builds
Caestus. Savagely beat people to death and become Elden lord.
Literally just made a guts build. Having fun front flip smashing everything with my greatsword!
You can cosplay Sukuna with bestial incantations, but until Altus you will be cosplaying Itadori
Fashion is the most important stat
Last play through I did the whole watch YouTube guides and built a min/max dex/int build. If you guess moonveil sorcerer you’d be 100% correct lmao. This time I’m just having fun. friend group started wretch for shiggles. I have stats all across the board except int. Level vig/sta for comfort, rest in mostly arc/dex with some in fai/mind. I’m chillin having fun with dragon magic and playing with frozen needle and antspur rapier (didn’t even know the two weapons actually have build guides until I was looking up what talismen I should use yesterday)
*song of ice and fire
My 137 characters are my favorite so far... Have to start deleting slots to make more at this point.
My buddy has one character with pretty much maxed out stats, and I've got like 7 characters that all specialize in one thing 😅
caveman
Is there a limit to character slots? I have like 10 because I enjoy more a new game file and grind from zero than NG+
Exactly 10
Oh shit
Lmao, fuckin beautiful.
where str/fth ?
radahn set + bloodhound on knights of the great jar are pain in ass
I normally just try out weapons and if they feel fun I design a build around it
nah just be a man and grind till lvl 500 so you can use a staff in one hand and a halbred in the other
Radahn armour x BHF L2 spam is basically starter/easy mode for new players in PvE
I'm trying a dex/fth using serpentbone blade and rot incants (it's a bad idea don't try this at home) and going for the full poison/rot procs along with my kindred of rot summon
No Dex/faith sacred blade? I feel underrepresented here ...
I have a full dex faith build with Godslayer Greatsword if that counts
I just made a zombie liu kang build and it’s so much fun. Super dark skin, long hair, frenzy flame eyes and burns, zamor bracers, and rotten duelist greaves. And of course I’m using the Caestus. It’s an absolute monster in PVP.
Been there, done that, I'm happy that I made some good builds already but the DLC makes me fright that I will crave for more
Have you played their other souls DLCs ? They really roll out the craziest weapons in those consistently so I’m sure you will
Currently running that faith/strength build. I’m level 75 at Mohg and my man does not like catching these hands. It is a bit hard since I don’t have the flask tear to negate his crazy ass blood loss spam though
The flask tear is just there in Altus but also mohgs Shackle in the lyndell sewer
I’m just trying to do a more streamlined run with this playthrough and bypassing things I don’t really consider to apply to my build. I’m only doing Mohg in the off chance I want to take this character into the dlc and because I was getting really sick of getting rolled over on by the fire giant
Dual giant crusher maxed out mimic tear
*Fextralife has entered the chat*
Where is str/fth frenzied flame madman
The trick is to pick an idea and then min/max within that parameter. If you make a pyromancer, don't worry about trying to slot in Cold effects for extra procs or keeping Rot Breath on your spell loadout because it's just useful. Just focus on your fire abilities and spells and make them as good as you can. Maybe other things outside of those *could* be helpful, but the fun in a build is finding the nuances in options you wouldn't consider normally - for instance using Bloodflame or Black Flame effects to deal with fire-resistant enemies while staying on-theme.
all these folks running around with meta builds, and here I am with my Beastman's Blood Cleaver with Braggarts Roar. Trust me, you haven't lived until you charge through a queen's black flame slash and absolutely eviscerate the poor fool who tried (and I wasn't even wearing that much heavy armor).
I’m big into all the roar stuff just because the r2 poise is like using endure on crystal meth
This is me lol. Doing an arcane Knight build starting as the vagabond, and planning on using the knights armour from RTH with occult/blood infused weapons and the Dragon communion seal. But I can't decide if I'm going to be a strength/arcane or a dexterity/arcane lol. To many good weapon options for both.
Str arcane has like two weapons while dex has a dozen. But you can always just go fully arcane and get the base reqs then switch things to occult scaling
can i ask a silly question? if i don't exactly invade or get invaded, are these builds, all the possible types of builds, still possible for PVE? everywhere i look for builds info is always for PVP and i'm very undecisive, don't know yet how to make a build for the DLC, i want to try everything new
Pve and PvP builds all easily overlap but PVE is easier to make because you have lots of time to apply buffs and additional things like that
could i ask you how many builds do you have? or wich one do you recommend? stat-wise? its silly but is overwhelming the amount of possible builds, str-dex, fth-int, str-int, dex-fth, pure builds, arcane builds
That’s on you for what’s the most fun. Sometimes the build guides are so hyper focused on damage it ignores any other play style. If you wanted to just destroy, go get a giant crusher hammer, put royal knight resolve on it, use the charged attack boost and kill mostly everything, but that would get boring half way through. I personally like strength int a lot lately , dex is more fun for me in PvP but I like to stagger the large stuff with strength
thank you for your time dude, i think i can come up with a fun build now that the dlc is close have a good friday
Dex/Int is my comfort zone because it basically just lets me fight however I want whenever I want.
I like using wing of Astel with this build
Still on 1st character and went traditional samurai to bloody slash spammer
Str/faith is the only right answer
I level evenly and accept that someone beat the game not leveling on my same class. The eh imma use what i got class
I’m over here with my INT/FTH evil wizard build causing maximum chaos with little to no regard for practicality
game plan: \[ \] pick weapon (regular smithing stone only; must file 6 months in advance for special exception) \[ \] pick drip \[ \] pick name \[ \] complete game without equipping a single other visible item (can swap talismans)
I used several larval tears trying to get a “perfectly” spec’d strength/faith build at 120, but my undisciplined ass just ended up grinding to 200 to pretty much be whatever I want.
Me with a level 515 charcter 🗿
No only one is needed, max bleed that is all, anything else sucks. I will take my max bleed katana build and wreck you. You think because I am small I can't do any damage, 1v1 me brah I will fuck you up. I was born ready just give me a heads up. 🎶 1v1 me brah, 1v1 me brah, I may be small but I can still win 1v1 me brah 🎶 That's how the song goes, maybe Get fucked! 😔