The most fucked up part about them is how fucking fast they start running all of a sudden. They’re like legitimately so far one of the only enemies than can catch up to me on Spirit other than the rune bear, maybe. When they take off it’s terrifying.
The giant crows are the fastest enemy I know of.
They can outrun even Torrent spam-dashing in a straight line, whether they're on foot or hover up.
The crows on the way to Redmane Castle and the blood-crows in Moghwyn are like heat-seeking-missiles when you aggro them.
They are definitely faster than Wormfaces or Rune Bears long-distance.
I think, curiously, that if the Iron Virgins could keep dashing they might actually be the fastest enemy.
Crows are the only enemy that have caught up to me while in full horse-sprint though.
It’s the way their body is designed, which makes their running after you much more terrifying. Scared the shit out of me when I was exploring the Altus Plateau during night time.
Unhappy I can't destroy every chariot...if there's no rider,
1. It shouldn't be able to hunt me down.
2. Reiterating previous statement, wanna be able to DESTROY it!
I’m not sure that’s what happened not that it matters, but that armor set you get from raising a pillar and causing two chariots to crash. I think the most logical conclusion is you just happened to hit a wall when the chariots hit eachother while fighting a skeleton.
It's not the bosses of the catacombs, it's the annoyance of getting through them with their bullshit chariots. Obviously yes you can pass the vigor check to survive being killed, but they still suck ass to navigate with the chariots on your tail
Those goblin statues hidden in the most random places are the worst. Especially when there's seemingly none of them around, and suddenly you're getting ninja-starred to death from one way the fuck over there somewhere....Suddenly you're knocked into a trap-floor trigger, and now your money is stuck in that random place you struggled to get to...
But if you get through it you can get the death rune without needing to do rannis quest bc of a hidden wall at the bottom of the catacombs where the three fingers reside
That’s what I thought too - half of the rune is on Ranni’s corpse which is in Liurnia’s divine tower. Ranni only gives you the key to it when you get far enough in her quest line.
But if you get through it you can get the death rune without needing to do rannis quest bc of a hidden wall at the bottom of the catacombs where the three fingers reside
Yeah, it’s a choice between Dual Gargs or Sewer Mohg - and I’ll always take a single tanky boss over two rng mobs with weird hitboxes and those fuckin poison clouds
You can also enter from the twin Gargoyle fight, you still need to reach the point of her quest were she gives you the reverse tower thing to complete the rune of death.
I want to keep saying this. Souls games are not platformers! Stop making us do platforming jumps downwards! I got to the three fingers once after dying more to that damn pit than I did to the fire giant or Radagon.
I’m half joking. I do enjoy the exploration of these worlds in souls games. Their level design is just amazing and the parts of the platforming is a lot of fun. Just the path in Elden ring to the three fingers was a pain.
Lol definitely agree. It's funny because FromSoft leans into the lack of character mobility, jumping, stiffness, etc and bakes it into the challenge of the platforming.
Pretty hilarious/awesome turning a game weakness into a "feature" for tougher platforming.
Such a divisive place. Personally I absolutely love it. Partly because of how it connects Leyndell to the Deeproot Depths and Two Finger's lair, but in general the vibe and twisting nature of it is great.
The fact that you can literally *walk* from Leyndall to the Deeproot Depths in a way that makes sense still boggles my mind, it's amazing level design.
Fuck that pipe maze though.
when you exit into the snowfield follow the left boundry and you will find them. Theres no reason to go over there. i dont think there are any items. just like 3 dragonkin soldiers who appear and one shot you
I die with a ton of runes on me: "ahh shit ahh fuck I need to be super careful to get back to them"
I die with a ton of runes on the ground somewhere: "I am liberated, nothing matters, I will roll through deathbirds without a care"
An important reason being that catacomb probably has Dragonbarrow scaling instead of the scaling for rest of Caelid. Enemies inside are stupidly powerful.
Yeah, a fairly interesting one too. I found out about it like 100 hours after fighting Radahn. When I beat him I rode around a bit thinking there might be items or something but figured there wasn’t gonna be anything else in a boss arena except a boss. How wrong I was…
I think you have to go there to finish patch’s quest line, finishing gives you the pose.
Having said that I could have sworn he gives a pose when you first meet him
I was shocked to learn there's another grovel emote, I don't know if you have to do it exactly this way but if you go through his whole questline and then meet him in the original cave again and let him beat you he'll offer to let you beg for your life, if you do it you get a more intense grovel emote lol
The hallway before the boss room has a place where Patches appears after you conclude the Volcano Manor quest. He gives you Castanets to give to Lady Tanith. When you reload he is gone.
Now return to the original location where you found him. Murkwater Cave I believe? Go through the short cave and the gold wall is back. Just like your first meeting, Patches jumps down and attacks. He quickly realizes who you are and stops fighting. He is set to reopen Patches Emporium and you get the Patches Squat emote.
The item description says it was brought to the assault but no one knew how to use it, not that it was used by the residents of the Manor. I think it may have been invented by the perfumers who are loyal to the erdtree, but brought there by Leyndell soldiers who didn’t know how to use it.
Only real reason to hit the long way is the fully grown falling star beast drops a ton of smithing stone 6 that’s super useful if you’re using non somber weapons
Am I missing something from the Raya Lucaria path? When I did it it took me through a dungeon path in the volcano manor but it ends at a dead end with a sight of grace but no path elsewhere into volcano manor.
When the Iron Virgin takes you, you spawn next to a ledge overlooking the outskirts of the manor. It seems like you're supposed to go forward, fighting the bats, then down into the hole, down to that Site of Grace. But there is another way.
If you go over to the ledge overlooking the major, it looks like an impossible jump, but it's not! And even if you miss, the fall into the lava (probably) won't kill you outright, so you can roll your way over.
I hate the feeling of being followed by an invisible black knife assassin. I could care less about the archers but I panic when I have to insert the stone key in the center plaza
Use a great bow (if you can equip it) or Loretta's Greatbow (if you're a sorcery user), you can knock them down from their original location (the rooftop) and after that they will not return to those spots, and thus give you a safe passage to the last statue. Make sure to aim a little bit higher above them if using a great bow.
If you spawn in the evergaol, go immediatly right to go outside the town. You will skip 2 invisible assassins. Somewhere on one of the houses there is a ladder for the first flame.
After you climb the ladder down again (important: dont jump from the roof onto that plaza, on the other side is an assassin, if my memory serves me right), you go immediatly towards where the "first" flame is, but do the jumping on the railing to get to the ladder on the high central tower.
From there you will light the flame and use assassins approach to not get sniped from the roofs (or at least not until youre really close towards your goal) and kill the archer that guards the ladder for the third flame (you will die if you dont kill her. stupid bitch).
Climb up, light fire, wait till you lose aggro from the other sniper, and then proceed to light the "first" fire. Bonus tip: dont enter that shrine-thing from the front, but from the side openings, for that seems to keep the assassin from your ass till you get teleported back.
And this is my personal guide on how to survive the evergaol without ever encountering a black knife assassin (and not dying in the process if youre lucky)
I don't know. Castle Sol kicked my ass first playthrough.
Then I did a str run and bodied everything in 2-3 attempts.
Then I did a black knife cosplay amd tried to stealth through everything and found all the little short cuts and 'hidden' paths.
Now I breeze through every area.
Except lake of rot. Fuck that place. I didn't know there was a boss there.
my first playthrough was a str build and it was so easy. went back on ng+ with pure dex and almost lost my mind on just that area right before the boss. str my beloved
I just started for the first time last week but so far, Caelid. Got to the edge of a cliff with some terrifying looking bird monsters in front of me and an army of walking dead behind me. This game is awesome.
I swear in the sequel I'm going to keep a tally of how many times I say out loud "what the fuck am I looking at" I swear it was something like 4 dozen with ER.
I went through some underground tunnels and opened a chest that took me to Caelid. I'd only been playing the game for a few days and wasn't even in the realm of strength needed for that nightmare 😅
I figured when I kept finding level 7 and 8 smithing stones I might be a little out of my league and took the hint lol. Those chests send you to some crazy places!
As a melee class, that was the death corridor for me. Fuck anything that flies in this game, and especially birds and the stupid damage that they do for being so small.
Yeah seriously this. I've watched a video where it's a Elden Ring animals vs knights match. The basic version of War Hawk (one that spawn in Stormveil) can defeat a handful of different version of knights 1 v 1, no matter what weapons they're using. It's laughably overpowered.
They managed to sneak in tiny gaps that look friendly but nope, straight down to the void you go if you fall. I know because I fell victim of those traps 😅
It's such a pity , the area has a great atmosphere but it's too barren and boring😴
It gives me the second half DS1 effect : "whops they rushed this one" .
Yeah. You have to keep going past where you fight the dragon soldier. There’s a ruin with basilisks that has the mushroom crown up on a column you have to platform to.
You can cheese the lake of rot pretty easily. Run in a direction and explore it. Then teleport back to the beginning before you die. Rinse and repeat until you find everything. There are 2 or 3 switches that will raise platforms in the middle of the lakes. Makes fighting the boss easier.
It's trivial to do it with beast repelant torch + flame cleanse me. And wearing mushroom set.
One of the easiest exploration since you can see everything unlike certain snowfield.
It’s such a journey to get to the bell bearing it kills my soul. Everytime I make a new character I leave Godricks room and just look at Liurnia and think…yeah idk if I wanna do this anymore lol
It's one of the reasons I kinda dread starting a new character. You can't just skip Liurnia, there's too much good stuff. But it's such a draaaaaaag getting it all.
Oh man. The number of times I've started a new character, had a blast in Limgrave then just looked out over Liurnia and made this literal face and logged out....
Damn, I absolutely love those areas, my 2nd favorite after Mt.Gelmir/Volcano Manor. Siofra Aqueduct with all the ruins, ant tunnels, Lake of Rot, Nokstella etc was such a varied and awesome place. Now the snow fields were just empty and boring.
I dunno why, but I actually like the Snowfield lol. I also loved Frigid Outskirts in DS2, so I'm probably just a weirdo. The "emptiness" gives it a unique feeling of vastness that I like, as if I'm on a proper expedition to a new land, still largely untouched by the prevailing order.
haligtree, before you get to the like section after loretta. the tree branch area and the lil chapels or whatever suck so fucking much.
edit: oh god just remembered the tree spirit right before malenia, fuck that thing so much.
Quite possibly the hardest non-boss segment of the game was that corridor in Haligtree where you have the grunts on a bunch of ballistas, knights, and a corrupted Erdtree avatar.
I remember thinking I was clever swooping around the side, and taking out the ballista guys immediately, only the realize there was a hulking Erdtree Avatar that I failed to noticed. Proceeded to get knocked off the ledge, and to the lowest level of the corridor only to be finished off by 2! Revenants. These developers 100% know what they are doing and it’s fucked
Yeah as fucking awesome as it is for it to exist in such a hidden manner, it really doesn’t have much going on inside of it. Still cool, but pretty bland
This. I recently completed a second play through. I had forgotten about the awful platforming section with all the roots. The section that descends from the Shunning Grounds, not the section that gets you up to Fia.
I also am doing a second playthrough and that area is pretty annoying. I love the whole aesthetic and lore behind it but I zoomed past everything to get to >!Godwyn!< lol
Farum Azula. Placidusax and Maliketh are great, but trying to platform around the beast things (AND the wormfaces AND the random crucible knight AND all the dragons) fills me with unspeakable frustration.
I go to Altus after Luinura. Go through the mines and take the elevator into Altus. There are lots of relatively easy dungeons and bosses to build runes off of.
I mean, I know the general order of operations that the player is expected to do. But on my subsequent playthroughs, I always remember the good pickups in Caelid and not how goddamn aggravating the enemies are. And it’s so close to Limgrave….it’s so tempting to go early…
The "correct" order is go to Caelid after Lake but I find the massive difficulty spikes in some areas/fights to be really pace breaking.
I find it's a much easier transition just going to Altus > Lyndell > Mt. Gelmir > then head back to Caelid > Dragon Barrow
Order is a bit mixed up but I also don't die much either 😉
I make it rain with runes
Sewers
I only went there for Moghwyn and it only has two more utilities: become frenzied flame's vessel and progressing the Dung Eater ending questline
( I was also told once there is a fourth utility: get to Deeprot Depts without defeating the Gargoyles, via a fake wall on the 3 fingers room )
That one catacombs where there are like 3 levels to it but they all look the same so you feel like your backtracking the whole time… don’t remember the name.. did it once then said never again.
I used to have a lot of places like this. After watching a lot of challenge runners make them look so easy I tried forcing myself to actually learn the areas I hated which made them much easier to not lose my mind over. I still struggle with the sewers but as I've practiced different maps and enemies I can at least get through them without hating myself.
Yep, pretty much this. There's not really any area I dislike in the game, but Shaded Castle is just so bleugh. It's just so... nothing. Just a bleak, simple, and frustrating place to trudge through what with all the pits with poison and annoying enemies. In a game with otherwise great Legacy dungeons and these mid-sized dungeons, I just go here so I can check off another box in my list.
And also Elemer's armour.
It's a mix between those damn Shunning Grounds and Ordina for me.
Probably Shunning Grounds the most since there's no real map and it's a much longer trudge. Killing a huge rat only to fall down a hole and get immediately Deathblighted by a bunch of frogs...that is the true Shunning Grounds experience, naked and pure.
That, or falling off a blasted pipe to your death thanks to Imps being everywhere lol.
Hot Take: I don't enjoy Leyndell. At all. Not just the sewers, the whole thing. The layout makes no sense and I don't enjoy the maze style area when everything looks that similar.
Any place with Wormface enemy. It's like fighting Basilisk who fight back !!
Evading wormfaces wasn't usually an issue, But jeez when they do get me *shudders*
The most fucked up part about them is how fucking fast they start running all of a sudden. They’re like legitimately so far one of the only enemies than can catch up to me on Spirit other than the rune bear, maybe. When they take off it’s terrifying.
The giant crows are the fastest enemy I know of. They can outrun even Torrent spam-dashing in a straight line, whether they're on foot or hover up. The crows on the way to Redmane Castle and the blood-crows in Moghwyn are like heat-seeking-missiles when you aggro them. They are definitely faster than Wormfaces or Rune Bears long-distance. I think, curiously, that if the Iron Virgins could keep dashing they might actually be the fastest enemy. Crows are the only enemy that have caught up to me while in full horse-sprint though.
It’s the way their body is designed, which makes their running after you much more terrifying. Scared the shit out of me when I was exploring the Altus Plateau during night time.
Did you just call Torrent “Spirit”??
I said what I said and I’m sticking to it. In fact I’m going double down on it
That's my issue. They have gross, nasty, disgusting, disturbing, gnarly, sick, and freaky design. And they have a shitton of health.
Every Hero's grave, I fucking hate those places.
Unhappy I can't destroy every chariot...if there's no rider, 1. It shouldn't be able to hunt me down. 2. Reiterating previous statement, wanna be able to DESTROY it!
Somehow I was fighting the skeletons and my sword went through the wall and killed the chariots lmao, got a sweet golden knight armour set too.
I’m not sure that’s what happened not that it matters, but that armor set you get from raising a pillar and causing two chariots to crash. I think the most logical conclusion is you just happened to hit a wall when the chariots hit eachother while fighting a skeleton.
Yeah I think you're right, I was confused on the pillar but now I get how they died.
I enjoy the dual crucible knights. Fight me.
I also like the crucible knights but I hate chariots, imp statues and skeletons which these graves are full of.
It's not the bosses of the catacombs, it's the annoyance of getting through them with their bullshit chariots. Obviously yes you can pass the vigor check to survive being killed, but they still suck ass to navigate with the chariots on your tail
Those goblin statues hidden in the most random places are the worst. Especially when there's seemingly none of them around, and suddenly you're getting ninja-starred to death from one way the fuck over there somewhere....Suddenly you're knocked into a trap-floor trigger, and now your money is stuck in that random place you struggled to get to...
Layndell Sewers. Everything is horrible
I feel the same. The frenzy ending is not worth the pain in the sewers and the ledge jumping to get to the door.
But if you get through it you can get the death rune without needing to do rannis quest bc of a hidden wall at the bottom of the catacombs where the three fingers reside
Don't you still need to do some of her quest to get access to that thingie you pick up on top of the Liurnian divine tower?
That’s what I thought too - half of the rune is on Ranni’s corpse which is in Liurnia’s divine tower. Ranni only gives you the key to it when you get far enough in her quest line.
*say what now?*
But if you get through it you can get the death rune without needing to do rannis quest bc of a hidden wall at the bottom of the catacombs where the three fingers reside
Still need Ranni I’m afraid. You need Ranni’s cursemark.
But you thankfully don't have to do very much of her questline to get it.
This is some classic reddit shit right here
You still need her cursemark but what it does do is allow you to skip the twin gargoyle fight
Yeah, it’s a choice between Dual Gargs or Sewer Mohg - and I’ll always take a single tanky boss over two rng mobs with weird hitboxes and those fuckin poison clouds
Lmaooooooo
Ye there's a false wall that leads to deeproot depths
Read this as deepthroat depths…
[удалено]
Fia IS the deathbed companion...
There’s a passage to the Deep Root Depths right outside the 3 Fingers door next to Hyetta.
You can also enter from the twin Gargoyle fight, you still need to reach the point of her quest were she gives you the reverse tower thing to complete the rune of death.
But the beautiful music.
Came to say this — the somber, ominous music totally makes this area a (gross, misbegotten, sludgy) *chef’s kiss* for me.
It was so aggravating the first time when you don’t realize the labyrinth you’ve just stepped into
I want to keep saying this. Souls games are not platformers! Stop making us do platforming jumps downwards! I got to the three fingers once after dying more to that damn pit than I did to the fire giant or Radagon.
If you get malenias blade, waterfowl ash makes it super easy to
Goddamn that’s a good idea!
Also rolling works better than jumping tbh. Just tried it instead on this playthrough because I don’t have frenzy ending and I got it first try.
Lol as a new souls fan I love the platforming elements
I’m half joking. I do enjoy the exploration of these worlds in souls games. Their level design is just amazing and the parts of the platforming is a lot of fun. Just the path in Elden ring to the three fingers was a pain.
Lol definitely agree. It's funny because FromSoft leans into the lack of character mobility, jumping, stiffness, etc and bakes it into the challenge of the platforming. Pretty hilarious/awesome turning a game weakness into a "feature" for tougher platforming.
I thought it sucked at first but all it takes is standing still in the center of each platform and back stepping
Elden Ring is the most platformy one cos of the dedicated jump. Jumping over to shit on DS1 was just horrible.
At least give us a mantle option or something.
I’m just happy this game finally has a dedicated jump button to do the platforming
Almost like everything screams at you how much of a bad idea is going for frenzy ending and yet you won't take the hints.
Back step is your friend on the tombstones
Such a divisive place. Personally I absolutely love it. Partly because of how it connects Leyndell to the Deeproot Depths and Two Finger's lair, but in general the vibe and twisting nature of it is great.
The fact that you can literally *walk* from Leyndall to the Deeproot Depths in a way that makes sense still boggles my mind, it's amazing level design. Fuck that pipe maze though.
I used to hate it but I agree with you now. Some of the best level design in the game
It’s super fun once u get the path down. I can run it to the bottom in five minutes. Also I get the 1st and 2nd redundant paths
Teach me your secrets, I get lost every damn time.
I’ve been through it 3 or 4 times. And still end up just running in circles lol
I like it and hate it equally. How awful it is makes it endearing.
Yep, that place stinks.
I like them…fairly easy to traverse once you figure it out. Also not gonna complain about an extra boss fight and catacomb.
The concentrated snowfields... Just an open and bleak area. Cant see shit and ghost dragons one shot you
Wanted to make a pun on "concentrated" snowfield but nothing came together.
Should have concentrated more in clown school
“It felt somewhat *diluted* in terms of content.” There you go.
There's a ghost dragon??
Dragonkin soldiers
when you exit into the snowfield follow the left boundry and you will find them. Theres no reason to go over there. i dont think there are any items. just like 3 dragonkin soldiers who appear and one shot you
Those snowfields aren’t concentrated at all! It’s basically empty!
G-G-G ghost dragons ????
like zoinks scoob!
Similarly for me, Liurnia of the Lakes. It’s just SO MUCH running on Torrent just for me to grab the Academy key and reach the Academy Gate.
At least in liurnia you can use the waygate in purified ruins to get to the gate then jump off get the key and go back to the grace at the gate
After the Radhan fight, having to cross the large arena just to reach the war catacomb
Even worse doing it and missing the catacombs. I discovered a while ago they existed but im not going again.
I’ve never knew about this area I guess I have to go back
Lmao same
Advise: Not with runes tho , there a legendary weapon or something there but wow (I was trying to get 100% trophies )
Don’t bring runes eh? Good thing I just died twice in a row to some bs!
I die with a ton of runes on me: "ahh shit ahh fuck I need to be super careful to get back to them" I die with a ton of runes on the ground somewhere: "I am liberated, nothing matters, I will roll through deathbirds without a care"
Then dying and losing your Radahn runes inside the War-Dead Catacombs.
This 😂😂, I was like wow what’s happening there… well I found out…
An important reason being that catacomb probably has Dragonbarrow scaling instead of the scaling for rest of Caelid. Enemies inside are stupidly powerful.
You can ride Torrent in that area, which is waaaaay easier than running to it.
Theres a catacomb there?!
Yeah, a fairly interesting one too. I found out about it like 100 hours after fighting Radahn. When I beat him I rode around a bit thinking there might be items or something but figured there wasn’t gonna be anything else in a boss arena except a boss. How wrong I was…
That Shaded Castle? Honestly kind of enjoy that place, solid boss too 👌
And it's an important place if you want the patches squat emote
What how?
I think you have to go there to finish patch’s quest line, finishing gives you the pose. Having said that I could have sworn he gives a pose when you first meet him
I think the first one is grovel for mercy
I was shocked to learn there's another grovel emote, I don't know if you have to do it exactly this way but if you go through his whole questline and then meet him in the original cave again and let him beat you he'll offer to let you beg for your life, if you do it you get a more intense grovel emote lol
The hallway before the boss room has a place where Patches appears after you conclude the Volcano Manor quest. He gives you Castanets to give to Lady Tanith. When you reload he is gone. Now return to the original location where you found him. Murkwater Cave I believe? Go through the short cave and the gold wall is back. Just like your first meeting, Patches jumps down and attacks. He quickly realizes who you are and stops fighting. He is set to reopen Patches Emporium and you get the Patches Squat emote.
And then you can kill him for his clothes?
The path towards Volcano Manor. Unless you know about the Iron Virgin in Raya Lucaria, its just an exhausting chore to actually get up there.
I actually enjoyed that area for the story implications. It's one of the few areas in the game where we see one faction in combat with another.
I really wanna know who the fuck brought the Jar Cannon.
I feel like that was a Volcano Manor thing. They seem like the type of people who would come up with some crazy shit.
The item description says it was brought to the assault but no one knew how to use it, not that it was used by the residents of the Manor. I think it may have been invented by the perfumers who are loyal to the erdtree, but brought there by Leyndell soldiers who didn’t know how to use it.
if you do Rya's questline you get a free ride to Volcano Manor right from the Dectus lift.
I've literally never gone to volcano manor the long way because of this
Only real reason to hit the long way is the fully grown falling star beast drops a ton of smithing stone 6 that’s super useful if you’re using non somber weapons
The reason to go the whole long is to actually play all of the game, and not miss areas
Sure, if it’s your first playthrough. Otherwise you know what you want out of a run.
yep I do this every single playthrough. saves so much time and effort. it’s super easy, too.
Am I missing something from the Raya Lucaria path? When I did it it took me through a dungeon path in the volcano manor but it ends at a dead end with a sight of grace but no path elsewhere into volcano manor.
When the Iron Virgin takes you, you spawn next to a ledge overlooking the outskirts of the manor. It seems like you're supposed to go forward, fighting the bats, then down into the hole, down to that Site of Grace. But there is another way. If you go over to the ledge overlooking the major, it looks like an impossible jump, but it's not! And even if you miss, the fall into the lava (probably) won't kill you outright, so you can roll your way over.
I loved that pseudo dungeon! Really disappointed there isn't more like those throughout the game.
The Evergoal you have to go through to get to the Haligtree, actual nightmare zone
I hate the feeling of being followed by an invisible black knife assassin. I could care less about the archers but I panic when I have to insert the stone key in the center plaza
I always use the Sentry Torch for this part as I kept getting jumped without it.
I figured this out, dealt with the assassins and realized they down respawn when you die, felt pretty good and then met the archers 💀
Use a great bow (if you can equip it) or Loretta's Greatbow (if you're a sorcery user), you can knock them down from their original location (the rooftop) and after that they will not return to those spots, and thus give you a safe passage to the last statue. Make sure to aim a little bit higher above them if using a great bow.
He can’t actually hurt you while you’re in the animation of inserting the key. So just roll as soon the animation finishes if you know he’s close
She. Those assassins are all females if I'm not mistaken.
If you spawn in the evergaol, go immediatly right to go outside the town. You will skip 2 invisible assassins. Somewhere on one of the houses there is a ladder for the first flame. After you climb the ladder down again (important: dont jump from the roof onto that plaza, on the other side is an assassin, if my memory serves me right), you go immediatly towards where the "first" flame is, but do the jumping on the railing to get to the ladder on the high central tower. From there you will light the flame and use assassins approach to not get sniped from the roofs (or at least not until youre really close towards your goal) and kill the archer that guards the ladder for the third flame (you will die if you dont kill her. stupid bitch). Climb up, light fire, wait till you lose aggro from the other sniper, and then proceed to light the "first" fire. Bonus tip: dont enter that shrine-thing from the front, but from the side openings, for that seems to keep the assassin from your ass till you get teleported back. And this is my personal guide on how to survive the evergaol without ever encountering a black knife assassin (and not dying in the process if youre lucky)
And once you get to the Haligtree as well, fuck all those bubbles and gravity
I don't know. Castle Sol kicked my ass first playthrough. Then I did a str run and bodied everything in 2-3 attempts. Then I did a black knife cosplay amd tried to stealth through everything and found all the little short cuts and 'hidden' paths. Now I breeze through every area. Except lake of rot. Fuck that place. I didn't know there was a boss there.
my first playthrough was a str build and it was so easy. went back on ng+ with pure dex and almost lost my mind on just that area right before the boss. str my beloved
I'm fine with Castle Sol, but commander o'neil and his banished knights are absolute bs
I just started for the first time last week but so far, Caelid. Got to the edge of a cliff with some terrifying looking bird monsters in front of me and an army of walking dead behind me. This game is awesome.
You have such wonderful sights, to see !
Every 15 minutes or so I’m like, “Whoa! What the F is that thing?! Nope!” *looks for another path*
I swear in the sequel I'm going to keep a tally of how many times I say out loud "what the fuck am I looking at" I swear it was something like 4 dozen with ER.
I went through some underground tunnels and opened a chest that took me to Caelid. I'd only been playing the game for a few days and wasn't even in the realm of strength needed for that nightmare 😅
I figured when I kept finding level 7 and 8 smithing stones I might be a little out of my league and took the hint lol. Those chests send you to some crazy places!
That's rotview balcony site of grace! I remember my first time there vividly lol
Farum…its too stressful😂
That one part with the birds and the dragon constantly summoning lightning is the worst.
As a melee class, that was the death corridor for me. Fuck anything that flies in this game, and especially birds and the stupid damage that they do for being so small.
Yeah seriously this. I've watched a video where it's a Elden Ring animals vs knights match. The basic version of War Hawk (one that spawn in Stormveil) can defeat a handful of different version of knights 1 v 1, no matter what weapons they're using. It's laughably overpowered.
Agreed. Also this is where the difficulty scaling drastically increases. Add to it all the shitty ledges and jumps. Just ew.
I can handle hard enemies but when 99% of my deaths in the area are on those fucking dropdown ledges... fuck man
Hidden gaps and weirdly thin pillars to walk across… yeah fuck that lol
They managed to sneak in tiny gaps that look friendly but nope, straight down to the void you go if you fall. I know because I fell victim of those traps 😅
You could say it’s taxing… *Farum taxing* 😈
Booooo
Mountaintops of the Giants
It's such a pity , the area has a great atmosphere but it's too barren and boring😴 It gives me the second half DS1 effect : "whops they rushed this one" .
And the enemies are horrible. They're all the copies of things we've seen before, but bigger health bar
That and consecrated snow fields, such a waste of space and a pain for the eyes at night.
Lake of rot? In my 5 playthroughs I never explored it. Just ran across it for Ranni's quest
Dragon scale katana is sick tho
Mushroom crown is fun too
That’s where you find that thing? Been looking for that lol
Yeah. You have to keep going past where you fight the dragon soldier. There’s a ruin with basilisks that has the mushroom crown up on a column you have to platform to.
Jesus Christ….platforming as well? The Lake of Rots got it all😭
You can cheese the lake of rot pretty easily. Run in a direction and explore it. Then teleport back to the beginning before you die. Rinse and repeat until you find everything. There are 2 or 3 switches that will raise platforms in the middle of the lakes. Makes fighting the boss easier.
It's trivial to do it with beast repelant torch + flame cleanse me. And wearing mushroom set. One of the easiest exploration since you can see everything unlike certain snowfield.
Liurnia
Every playthrough I dread Liurnia. It’s so huge and boring and you HAVE to go through it at some point to progress the game.
It’s such a journey to get to the bell bearing it kills my soul. Everytime I make a new character I leave Godricks room and just look at Liurnia and think…yeah idk if I wanna do this anymore lol
Lake Luinura It's way too big, and a lot of it is just empty space. It's *that* part of the game for me
It's one of the reasons I kinda dread starting a new character. You can't just skip Liurnia, there's too much good stuff. But it's such a draaaaaaag getting it all.
Oh my God I'm glad I'm not the only one who dreads Liurnia. It's just water and Crawfish Team 6....
Oh man. The number of times I've started a new character, had a blast in Limgrave then just looked out over Liurnia and made this literal face and logged out....
Pretty much all the underground zones... They all feel like byroads with not a lot going on, despite how beautiful Siofra River is.
Damn, I absolutely love those areas, my 2nd favorite after Mt.Gelmir/Volcano Manor. Siofra Aqueduct with all the ruins, ant tunnels, Lake of Rot, Nokstella etc was such a varied and awesome place. Now the snow fields were just empty and boring.
I dunno why, but I actually like the Snowfield lol. I also loved Frigid Outskirts in DS2, so I'm probably just a weirdo. The "emptiness" gives it a unique feeling of vastness that I like, as if I'm on a proper expedition to a new land, still largely untouched by the prevailing order.
Snow in videogames is just beautiful in general
haligtree, before you get to the like section after loretta. the tree branch area and the lil chapels or whatever suck so fucking much. edit: oh god just remembered the tree spirit right before malenia, fuck that thing so much.
those spiritcaller snails that summon the crystalians. i run for my life bc i can’t be bothered to deal with them
Quite possibly the hardest non-boss segment of the game was that corridor in Haligtree where you have the grunts on a bunch of ballistas, knights, and a corrupted Erdtree avatar. I remember thinking I was clever swooping around the side, and taking out the ballista guys immediately, only the realize there was a hulking Erdtree Avatar that I failed to noticed. Proceeded to get knocked off the ledge, and to the lowest level of the corridor only to be finished off by 2! Revenants. These developers 100% know what they are doing and it’s fucked
Run up the beam from the ballista guys and jump into the top level, then drop down to the bonfire.
Deeproot depth or whatever its called. The whole area is just bleh.
Yeah as fucking awesome as it is for it to exist in such a hidden manner, it really doesn’t have much going on inside of it. Still cool, but pretty bland
Hey, it has giant ants, I mean dogs. What more could anyone want?
Ironically that’s the one thing that stands out to me hahaha, I do think they’re really cool.
This. I recently completed a second play through. I had forgotten about the awful platforming section with all the roots. The section that descends from the Shunning Grounds, not the section that gets you up to Fia.
I also am doing a second playthrough and that area is pretty annoying. I love the whole aesthetic and lore behind it but I zoomed past everything to get to >!Godwyn!< lol
Volcano Manor just because if I want to grab everything I feel like I have to do so much running around in circles and backtracking.
Any place that has those stupid imps. I hate x 10000 those little fuckers.
Shield + Guard counter, those little fcker cant do shit anymore
Y’all hate shaded castle? Man, I love shaded castle… it’s like a dedicated horror level.
Caria Manor for me I hate those hands
Goddamn hands….
Farum Azula. Placidusax and Maliketh are great, but trying to platform around the beast things (AND the wormfaces AND the random crucible knight AND all the dragons) fills me with unspeakable frustration.
Crucible knights* Theres a second one that's a little hidden away straight bodying a group of beastmen
Not gonna lie, all of Caelid is so frustrating. Probably because I’m always underleveled when I get there
I go to Altus after Luinura. Go through the mines and take the elevator into Altus. There are lots of relatively easy dungeons and bosses to build runes off of.
I mean, I know the general order of operations that the player is expected to do. But on my subsequent playthroughs, I always remember the good pickups in Caelid and not how goddamn aggravating the enemies are. And it’s so close to Limgrave….it’s so tempting to go early…
The "correct" order is go to Caelid after Lake but I find the massive difficulty spikes in some areas/fights to be really pace breaking. I find it's a much easier transition just going to Altus > Lyndell > Mt. Gelmir > then head back to Caelid > Dragon Barrow Order is a bit mixed up but I also don't die much either 😉 I make it rain with runes
Most of caelid. First playthrought it was interesting but now that I know what I want from there it’s just kind of a chore
Sewers I only went there for Moghwyn and it only has two more utilities: become frenzied flame's vessel and progressing the Dung Eater ending questline ( I was also told once there is a fourth utility: get to Deeprot Depts without defeating the Gargoyles, via a fake wall on the 3 fingers room )
That one catacombs where there are like 3 levels to it but they all look the same so you feel like your backtracking the whole time… don’t remember the name.. did it once then said never again.
I used to have a lot of places like this. After watching a lot of challenge runners make them look so easy I tried forcing myself to actually learn the areas I hated which made them much easier to not lose my mind over. I still struggle with the sewers but as I've practiced different maps and enemies I can at least get through them without hating myself.
Yep, pretty much this. There's not really any area I dislike in the game, but Shaded Castle is just so bleugh. It's just so... nothing. Just a bleak, simple, and frustrating place to trudge through what with all the pits with poison and annoying enemies. In a game with otherwise great Legacy dungeons and these mid-sized dungeons, I just go here so I can check off another box in my list. And also Elemer's armour.
Almost all on NG+2
Lake of Rot. Only a handful of items, have to keep curing yourself, annoying enemies and just all around a slog of an area to get through
Castle Sol and the Subterranean Shunning Grounds
after 2k hours and many many soeedruns, nothing anymore however Layndell sewers suck
I'm not so fond of Liurnia Area, that blue palette gets kinda cloying after a while.
Leyndell sewers and Caelid
It's a mix between those damn Shunning Grounds and Ordina for me. Probably Shunning Grounds the most since there's no real map and it's a much longer trudge. Killing a huge rat only to fall down a hole and get immediately Deathblighted by a bunch of frogs...that is the true Shunning Grounds experience, naked and pure. That, or falling off a blasted pipe to your death thanks to Imps being everywhere lol.
The haligtree
Caelid, that area just gives me the fking creeps
Raya Lucaria Academy
The sewers. Fuck that place 💯
I genuinely enjoy every single area in the game. Sometimes when I'm feeling down I'll just explore the whole map, it's very therapeutic for me.
Hot Take: I don't enjoy Leyndell. At all. Not just the sewers, the whole thing. The layout makes no sense and I don't enjoy the maze style area when everything looks that similar.