Elden Ring

[Grim Portent]

So I've got a question that I haven't managed to find an answer for in game yet.

Spoiler: About Ranni

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Why is Ranni an empyrean but Rykard and Radahn aren't? As I understand it the three of them are all the children of Radagon and Rennala, while the other empyreans are Miquella and Malenia, both children of Radagon and Marika, and of course Radagon/Marika themself.

During Ranni's questline she implies that being an empyrean was something decided by the Two Fingers as part of declaring potential heirs to Marika, but I had previously gotten the impression that it was something you were born as.

[Lord Raziere]

So I've got a question that I haven't managed to find an answer for in game yet.

Spoiler: About Ranni

Show

Why is Ranni an empyrean but Rykard and Radahn aren't? As I understand it the three of them are all the children of Radagon and Rennala, while the other empyreans are Miquella and Malenia, both children of Radagon and Marika, and of course Radagon/Marika themself.

During Ranni's questline she implies that being an empyrean was something decided by the Two Fingers as part of declaring potential heirs to Marika, but I had previously gotten the impression that it was something you were born as.

Spoiler

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I think its something the Greater Will simply chooses because.....reasons. the Two-Fingers are just its messengers. the Greater Will is kind of mysterious like that, because by all accounts, none of its later choices make any sense to any sensible perspective to perpetuating the Golden Order/ the Erdtree:
-Miquella is an eternal child, turned away from the golden order because it held no way to cure his sister, Malenia of her scarlet rot which she had from birth. the unalloyed gold needle and prosthetics she wears? all his invention. sad thing to because he was probably actually the best candidate being someone of both compassion and intelligence and having the ability to charm people.
-Malenia....has always had the scarlet rot, much Miquella was always an eternal child. the reason for these curses from what I can gather seem to influences from Outer Gods that aren't the Greater Will, though they aren't specifically named, just know that the Scarlet Rot originates from some godlike entity that isn't the Greater Will. given how it ravaged Caelid, its not clear how the Greater Will can recognize things like the Black Flame, frenzied flame or the giants flame, or corpses rising as skeletons as threats to its existence but not super-fungus that could eat the Erdtree from the inside out.
-Ranni stole a half of a death rune and put the body of Godwyn into some screwed up state, thus breaking the cycle of life and death and starting the whole "Those Who In Live In Death" thing, thus screwing things up more than they already were when Marika shattered it. also is a powerful glintstone sorcerer, which is also a thing of entities not of the Greater Will, such as those starbeasts, also the moon might be an Outer God?

so either the Greater Will is too accepting of outside influence in its demigod choices (this is the being that originated the Golden Order and thus the philosophy of the turtle pope), or its not as far-seeing and all knowing as it seems. it definitely has alien priorities that aren't always in the Lands Between best interests.

[GloatingSwine]

Spoiler

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I think its something the Greater Will simply chooses because.....reasons. the Two-Fingers are just its messengers. the Greater Will is kind of mysterious like that, because by all accounts, none of its later choices make any sense to any sensible perspective to perpetuating the Golden Order/ the Erdtree:

Spoiler

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The Greater Will doesn't want to perpetuate the Erdtree or the Golden Order. It wants it to fall and be reborn as it did at the end of the age of dragons when it took the form of the primordial crucible. (Remember that Placidusax was an Elden Lord from the era before the Erdtree)

Consider:

The Gloam-Eyed Queen who led the Godskin who sought to hunt down and kill the gods was a servant of the Two Fingers.
The two rebellions of an Empyrean causing their shadow to berserk that we know of are Marika who shattered the Ring and caused a great stagnation and Ranni who intended to forge an order which was taken away from the planet and so could not be broken.
If Melina is alive and you become the Lord of Frenzied Flame she promises to hunt you down and kill you, ending your threat to the Two Fingers and the Greater Will. (This is why I believe Melina actually is the Gloam-Eyed Queen, she's here to kill the gods, just like she did before in service to the Greater Will)

The Greater Will benefits from the end of ages and their change into new ones.

[Lord Raziere]

Spoiler

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The term "Elden Lord" being applied to Placidusax doesn't really mean the Greater Will had anything to do with it or that it was there before the Erdtree. it just means that the "Elden Lord" and Erdtree" and whatnot are terms made by the people of the Lands Between, and not by the Greater Will or the Elden Beast sent by the Greater Will to rule it like a vassal. Which makes more sense, as humans are those speaking the language, while the Greater Will and the Elden Beast seem far too alien to even speak let alone refer to themselves in such familiar terms. The Crucible if anything is evidence of a tree or power of life before the Erdtree and that the Erdtree is an alien parasite imposing its own order over the world, as a spell states that it earned its place of order through war and conquering, it wasn't just accepted like it was now.

[Dienekes]

So I've got a question that I haven't managed to find an answer for in game yet.

Spoiler: About Ranni

Show

Why is Ranni an empyrean but Rykard and Radahn aren't? As I understand it the three of them are all the children of Radagon and Rennala, while the other empyreans are Miquella and Malenia, both children of Radagon and Marika, and of course Radagon/Marika themself.

During Ranni's questline she implies that being an empyrean was something decided by the Two Fingers as part of declaring potential heirs to Marika, but I had previously gotten the impression that it was something you were born as.

There are a few theories. This does spoil the ending though.

Spoiler

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Theory 1 is that to be an Empyrean requires the child to be born of a single god. No other individual can be involved. So Ranni as a "child of Radagon and Rennala" may be more like Radagon created Ranni and gave her to Rennala before he left. There are some people who think she is the being of the Amber Egg. She was given to Rennala and raised as Rennala's child, loving her far more than the father that abandoned her, even though she was not technically descended from her. The evidence for it is that there is actually a lot of visual clues that people (especially Radagon/Marika) are the Great Runes. Marika's body actively changes with what rune you give her in the end. And Radagon clearly has the various runic symbols in his body as well. There is also a lot of evidence of people creating runes within themselves as if it were a child. Basically that's the end of Fia, Dung Eater, and Goldmask questlines. That said there are a lot of unanswered question here. How is Ranni the egg when Rennala still has the egg. The answer could be illusions, as we've seen Ranni do a hell of a lot of them. But still that's not the most satisfying answer. And it clearly has a few jumps in logic. But it does neatly explain why Ranni and specifically the demigods born of Radagon and Marika together as one god are Empyreans while the others are not.

Theory 2 is that to be an Empyrean requires specifically the Fingers deciding that they are worthy of being an Empyrean. If the Fingers decide a creature of divine blood is worthy. Notice I specifically said "Fingers" not "The Two Fingers." Gloam-Eyed Queen was chosen by The Fingers, but the number was not given. Unless I'm missing a piece of lore. And since Marika defeated her, way before she was punished by the Greater Will that may or may not have been against the Greater Will's plans. But the issue is we don't really know where Marika's flaws begin and the Greater Will's flaws start. Radagon for example was entirely willing to marry into a culture that had different gods and create a peaceful state that worked within the Golden Order, and Radagon was the half of Marika that specifically was loyal to the Golden Order. Marika is the one that started a lot of wars. But some of those wars are against creatures and philosophies that are horrifying and destructive. I don't think many are mourning the loss of the god of the Flame of Ruin. So it's difficult to get a clear picture of anyone's motive with all this.

Theory 3 an Empyrean is a Demigod+. What that + is, we are not sure of but it is not entirely genetic. But it is some possible connection with the Outer Gods. Some are born with the potential some are not. So anyone trying to pick an Empyrean has to deal with what's available. And at this time, only Miquella, Malenia, and Ranni are even potential choices. This has the benefit of making motivations clear. But there is also nothing in the game that ever says anything like this. You'd think that if possible, the Greater Will would pick someone naturally aligned with their goals.

[Grim Portent]

Playing New Game+, was able to breeze through a bunch of the game, but I think I'm hitting a point where level 120 isn't sufficient anymore. Even a lot of the basic enemies in Leyndell are taking a lot of punishment to put down, and I no longer feel comfortably able to use any of a number of weapons just for wandering about.


Also, I am very annoyed that I cannot remove the skill from the Crucible Horn Shield. I really like the weapon arts on Ordovis' Greatsword and Siluria's Tree, but I have to put away my shield to use them, which messes with my flow. Or I can not dress up as a Crucible Knight, but where's the fun in that?

[Anteros]

It's pretty common with Fromsoft games that New Game+ is much easier until the late game. One of the reasons why I personally feel like it's better to just start a new character for a fresh playthrough unless there's something specific you want to do that requires NG+.

[Rynjin]

Personally, I just wanted to smash things hard and do PvP.

[Rynjin]

New patch up. Plenty of balance updates, but there's a specific thing that's notable for the person who was asking for it:

Added an option to turn camera auto rotate function ON/OFF.

[Lord Raziere]

Decreased the scaling of status effect build-up from spells and incantations of Albinauric Staff and Dragon Communion Seal.

ouch, guess they got tired of "rot breath the boss" tactics.

Placidusax's Ruin - Decreased FP, Stamina cost and recovery time.
Dragonclaw - Decreased FP, Stamina cost and recovery time and made it easier to cause enemies to flinch when charged.
Dragonmaw - Decreased FP, stamina cost, recovery time and increased cast speed and made it easier to cause enemies to flinch when charged.
Greyoll's Roar - Decreased FP, Stamina cost and recovery time.

while buffing all these, wow they really were tired of "rot breath the boss" tactics, but hey! a cheaper placidusax's ruin is something to be happy about.

Swarm of Flies - Decreased blood loss buildup on enemy.

darn it, there goes the spell that won me Malenia.

Fixed a bug where the animation when inflicted with blood loss and frostbite was bigger than originally planned.

okay, smaller bleed I think this means?

[LaZodiac]

okay, smaller bleed I think this means?

The dog that causes bleed no longer instantly explodes you v_v

I've heard they also changed the Chariots in the Hero Grave dungeons but I don't know what they've done specifically.

[Rynjin]

okay, smaller bleed I think this means?

I think it reduces the hitstun. Shouldn't affect the damage.

[Lord Raziere]

I've heard they also changed the Chariots in the Hero Grave dungeons but I don't know what they've done specifically.

If they still instakill you when they pass by, I don't think anyone will notice a difference.

as for the blood dog getting nerfed, good I hated fighting those things.

[Grim Portent]

Managed to carve my way further into NG+ without levelling by switching up my gear. Currently using the star fists with bloodflame blade for rapid bleed, and Radahn's Greatbow for fights where I can't bleed the enemy, like the gargoyle outside the lift of rold. Gotten all the great runes except Malenia's, and the Fire Giant is the next mandatory boss I'm up against, but I think I'm going to go swan around in dungeons for a bit.


Pursuing the Frenzied Flame ending, and I'm actually kind of digging the burns you get. Dressed down from my normal plate armours to duelist gear, and ditched my greatshield, which does mean I'm having to get used to rolling rather than blocking which is a bit of a shift but it also means I can see my scars and I look like a homicidal gladiator, so it's a net win.

[Dienekes]

Bahh, they fixed colossal weapons after my Zwei run. Typical. Don’t really have a handle on what the actual difference was with animation and damage changes, but noticed the guard got increased by something like 15%. That’s pretty good. I was already using guard into guard counter occasionally, making it a bit more effective could be good.

Not seeing much to effect my current sword and board run though.

[Lord Raziere]

Bahh, they fixed colossal weapons after my Zwei run. Typical. Don’t really have a handle on what the actual difference was with animation and damage changes, but noticed the guard got increased by something like 15%. That’s pretty good. I was already using guard into guard counter occasionally, making it a bit more effective could be good.

Not seeing much to effect my current sword and board run though.

I dunno, if anything it looks like they buffed colossal weapons by increasing the damage and attack speed and lowering recovery time which I think means you can dodge out of their animations better.

[Dienekes]

I dunno, if anything it looks like they buffed colossal weapons by increasing the damage and attack speed and lowering recovery time which I think means you can dodge out of their animations better.

Oh yea, I get that. My meaning was more since I’m on a new save and I haven’t upgraded any colossal weapons at all, I can’t see how effective those changes are. Swinging them around a bit against the air I couldn’t feel any noticeable difference, but fractions of a second can mean the difference between getting hit or not. So I just can’t say for myself how effective the change is.

But also there is the comment that two-handed damage was increased. In the base game, two-handing a weapon just increased the damage gained from your Strength, by calculating it as if your Strength was 50% higher. Which, isn’t horrible, but since your attributes get a lot less effective after the soft caps isn’t as effective as you might think.

I’m curious what the new formula is. And for not the first time I wonder why they don’t just increase the attribute damage by 50% and call it a day.

[somerando]

Got Elden Ring a couple weeks ago. Started playing recently, just got up to Margit. This is my first fromsoft game, and my only vaguely similar experience is with MH World. It's quite difficult but I'd say quite rewarding too, I'm definitely enjoying it. I noticed some people here were talking about summoning Rogier to help fight Margit, but I was under the impression you could only get Rogier from inside Stormveil Castle, which you need to beat Margit to enter. How does this work?

[Rynjin]

Got Elden Ring a couple weeks ago. Started playing recently, just got up to Margit. This is my first fromsoft game, and my only vaguely similar experience is with MH World. It's quite difficult but I'd say quite rewarding too, I'm definitely enjoying it. I noticed some people here were talking about summoning Rogier to help fight Margit, but I was under the impression you could only get Rogier from inside Stormveil Castle, which you need to beat Margit to enter. How does this work?

Outside of Margit's boss fog, to the right of the archway, is a little gold scribble. Like one of the messages, but orange-gold. Touching it will summon Rogier to help.

All NPC and other player summons for that matter, show up as the same gold scribble.

[Lord Raziere]

Got Elden Ring a couple weeks ago. Started playing recently, just got up to Margit. This is my first fromsoft game, and my only vaguely similar experience is with MH World. It's quite difficult but I'd say quite rewarding too, I'm definitely enjoying it. I noticed some people here were talking about summoning Rogier to help fight Margit, but I was under the impression you could only get Rogier from inside Stormveil Castle, which you need to beat Margit to enter. How does this work?

the Rogier summon sign is right before Margit's golden fog, you should not be able to miss it. though I would say Rogier is only kind of helpful for facing him.

I'd also say that unlike most souls fromsoft games you have a wide open world and thus can explore and level up and get stuff from doing a bunch of optional stuff instead of repeatedly slamming your head against him in futility. like its possible to face him straight away, but the people who do it are generally highly skilled challenge runners. if this is your first fromsoft title I generally recommend being patient...just in general. your going to die a lot. seek to play smart over playing reckless. know that its okay to not beat something right away, and most enemies in the over world its okay to just...run past them without picking a fight with them if you don't want to. try to figure what you want to do, don't just follow the expected path. explore, there are tons of secrets to find especially in this game which is far larger than the dark souls series. don't worry too much about completing questlines, I don't think any soulsborne fan has them memorized and need to look them up every time they do for the necessary steps and we might still be figuring out the exact triggers for quests in this one.

like just figure out your own pace and way of doing things, there is a lot of ways to play these kinds of games, all of them valid.

[Anteros]

Well, they didn't change jump attacks on colossal weapons so my playstyle is largely unaffected.

I've been expecting the faith magic buffs for a while, so that's no surprise. Most of the nerfs seem pvp related. The fly swarm spell and the madness spells were all way too good.

[Rynjin]

Well, they didn't change jump attacks on colossal weapons so my playstyle is largely unaffected.

It should be affected; the rest of your moveset is actually usable now. Endlag was MAJORLY reduced on all attacks.

I've been expecting the faith magic buffs for a while, so that's no surprise. Most of the nerfs seem pvp related. The fly swarm spell and the madness spells were all way too good.

Yeah, From typically nerfs things for PvP, with the (IMO quite good) logic that if something is busted in PvE, it doesn't actually matter, because people are having fun, but conversely if something is busted in PvP, it should be changed because it ensures at least one person in that scenario is NOt having fun.

[Rodin]

If they still instakill you when they pass by, I don't think anyone will notice a difference.

as for the blood dog getting nerfed, good I hated fighting those things.

It isn't a nerf, it's a bugfix. The dogs were never meant to be that strong.

For all other attacks in the game, the hitstun conveys iframes against whichever attack it was that hit you. This means that you can't get hit more than once by the same attack except in occasions where that is intentional (a multi-hitting attack that chains together lots of little attacks, for example).

For complicated reasons to do with how enemy generation is handled the bleed dogs didn't have that. They hit you on every frame of their attack. This causes massive damage on its own. With instant bleed procs stacking repeatedly every frame? The dogs were dealing over 10000 DPS. Now that the bug is fixed, the dogs are just really, really scary instead of instakill.

----

The patch brought me back to my Paladin character who I had given up on in disappointment after finding out the early Lightning Spear pickup was literally the best Lightning spell in the game despite being one of the earliest you acquire. I can already tell you - these changes are no joke.

Honed Bolt and Lightning Strike are both significantly easier to use. Honed Bolt was a decent spell but it was hard to pull off against any enemy that could close the distance. Now you can actually use it to quickly beat up on a single enemy or pick off individuals in a crowd. Lightning Strike is actually usable instead of taking 10 years to wind up.

The biggest improvement so far though is Lightning Stake Ancient Dragon's Lightning Spear. It previously had a hellish windup that was almost impossible to complete because the spell had virtually no superarmor. The opportunity cost of casting the spell vs something like Wrath of Gold wasn't worth it, and the long recovery time meant you died if anything was still standing. Now you can launch yourself into a crowd of enemies and drop the lot of them in exchange for a couple of whacks. The reduced cast time with the reduced recovery time also means you can realistically chain a second ADLS against tougher enemies.

Lightning Spear is still the most versatile, but I now have a whole array of spells I want to use depending on the situation. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go kill Lansseax so I can test his Glaive.

[Rynjin]

Being honest, Honed Bolt was ALREADY the best lightning spell. Solid damage, and it can be combo-cast. It's especially good in PvP since you can use it for guaranteed damage if combo'd.

[Grim Portent]

Making good strides in NG+ without levelling further. Astel, SoD is down. I think the only major optional bosses left are Malenia, Fortissax and Placudisax. For mandatory bosses I think it's just the Godskin Duo, Malekith, Godfrey and Radagon.

Being forced to learn better dodging skills has paid off, and I've also learned to use greatbows as an actual weapon during this run. Also developed a fondness for Vyke's spear, the madness effect might not work on many enemies but it's still a fun weapon. Also haven't used my previous go to spells at all, no dragon communion or beast invocations, so I've actually managed to turn it into a learning run.

[Lord Raziere]

tried to get to Rennala on my astrologer, but couldn't even get past the wolf. my health is simply too low and that wolf is too fast and kept one-shotting me, so I went and killed Bols and Margit, I wanted to kill him with Comet Azur but alas, looks like its not meant to be and I'll have to do some leveling to be more survivable. I've got the carian knight set finally after missing it in my first playthrough which should help. hopefully if I get my vigor to 20, that should be survivable enough?

[Rynjin]

20 should be fine. At that point in my first playthrough I had 13. Juuuust enough to not get oneshot by the Red Wolf.

[Rodin]

I found Rock Sling to be essential for beating the wolf. The rocks have good homing for his big leaps and he does his "dodge on cast" before the rocks start traveling.

And as always, having a Spirit Ash out to play with the doggie is super helpful. Not sure what restrictions you're playing with though.

On Honed Bolt - I'm sure it's great for PvP but for PvE I found the targeting to just unreliable enough to put me off using it except in controlled situations. If I fire a Lightning Spear off, it's hitting that enemy in the face. Honed Bolt misses enemies walking towards me far too often for comfort.

It's also difficult for me to combo as a pure Lightning user - Lightning Spear is the fastest cast of that set of spells and if I'm already using Lightning Spear why try to swap mid-combat?

Honed Bolt gets brought out to deal with particularly tough turtling enemies like Leyndell knights who tend to hide behind their shields. Ancient Lightning Spear for fast bruisers because I can get a big spike knockdown as they rush in. Lightning Spear for sniping and your standard soldier types. Glaive of Lansseax for crowd clearing. Wrath of Gold (I know, not Lightning, but damn I love this spell) for when I get mobbed.

Ancient Lightning Strike for when a boss needs to go bye-bye. Hard to pull off for some bosses (the fat Apostle in Volcano Manor was particularly troublesome) but nailing them for 4-5K with one spell is usually worth it rather than trying to land multiple hits with other spells.

[Lord Raziere]

I found Rock Sling to be essential for beating the wolf. The rocks have good homing for his big leaps and he does his "dodge on cast" before the rocks start traveling.

And as always, having a Spirit Ash out to play with the doggie is super helpful. Not sure what restrictions you're playing with though.

really? rock sling? for the wolf? I can try I guess. doesn't seem fast enough and that I'd get killed mid casting when that happens against the wolf with faster spells. I have been using spirit ashes but I should probably upgrade them, maybe get a couple ashes that are good to have.

[Rynjin]

On my current Battlemage playthrough I tried to Rock Sling the wolf but it either dodged everything or they just smacked into chairs instead of him. Just had to whack him.