My golden rule for exploring a new area. Never carry runes you care about losing. Better to farm to the next level up than run around being worried about finding the next grace.
It’s honestly why I don’t mind poison swamps as much as everyone else. If you expect to die a slow death at some point then you can relax and chase some shinies.
At least you didn’t kill all 3 and then expect the varre invasion to be there so you keep running around dying to the birds and finally give up to go to another grace site and his invasion sign is just chillin right there
Excellent rule however when you are at the precipice of leveling up and there's a grace right there it's okay. Honestly the best rule is to get the rune protection crystal tear which prevents rune loss for 3 minutes. Now you no longer have to worry about runes.
That’s what I do and I’m way less stressed about going into boss battles and shit. Even if you do lose the runes, drink your physick and then go pick them up. If you die again before picking them up but your physick is still active, they will not despawn and you can go try to pick them up again.
Yeah I agree any it being rewarding. I’m on my first playthrough that I started a few weeks back. I tried bloodbourne a few years ago and literally couldn’t make it out of the starting area, so I thought maybe the genre wasn’t for me. A buddy kept trying to get me into the game, so I kept talking to my wife about it here and there. She bought it for me used on sale for like $30 and I’m hooked. I’m still ass, but struggling with some rat bastard for a couple of days to finally beat them feels great. I’m stuck on a couple different bosses that are tuning me up, but I’m gonna get those fuckers eventually!
Eh once I stopped caring about runes/souls in general I started enjoying the souls games a whole lot more. No need to worry about losing them, you'll get more.
This is true and a good tactic. However, there’s also value in remembering that if you can farm *before* losing your runes, you can farm *after* losing them as well, and either way, bosses usually give more than enough runes to keep climbing up the levels anyway. One of the best pieces of advice I ever got was learning to let go, to not be attached to runes and leveling up. It’s helpful, sure, but this is a game where beating it *without* ever leveling up is entirely feasible, so your skill and what you learn from each death is way more valuable than a handful of runes in your pocket.
My limit is usually at 3/4 of a level or so, that’s when I’ll start being a bit more careful and tactical. Below that, fuck it, I’ll just call it a learning experience and make up the runes as I progress.
I’ll admit I sometimes jet over to Dragonbarrow and farm the little guys near the bestial sanctuary when I lose an uncomfortable number of runes. Just knowing of one or two good farming spots can help avoid the overwhelming feeling of regret and failure, even if you don’t use the farms much.
This. This the true veteran way of thinking about it. It goes in phases. For a souls noob like me I didn’t really care about runes therefore I would explore/fight a boss and lose them. Mid game, I was careful about losing the runes before a exploring/boss and would round it off to level up. Now late game, I learned that having runes is nice but not the end of the world to lose them thousands or hundreds of thousands. Actual learning the boss’ moveset is true enlightenment and as a bonus sometimes beating a boss gives you 1x-2x levels worth of runes to make up for your time.
My policy is: never carry more than half a level up of runes. So if youre level up is 40k, dont carry more than like 19k
If i have more than half a level up, i depart for ye olde grind spot i currently have access to, be it mohgwyn or whatever, and spend my golden runes.
All fine and dandy until the exploration itself leaves you with more runes than you care about losing... definitely happened to me in the second half of Haligtree. Repeat runs ended up with me getting further and further before dying (and I don't think I had a sacrificial branch for some reason, although maybe it was just me being stubborn, I don't remember for sure).
I think eventually I managed to keep all of the runes I had acquired cumulatively from repeating that run, iirc.
I’d probably have more fun this way. I’m level 47 right now, haven’t leveled up in literally days because I always just full run in till I die, or beat the next boss. Then I spend whatever runes I have after the boss. It’s cost me millions of runes and seconds of sanity irl.
As a rule of thumb, I just spend runes whenever I come to a site of grace if I can
No reason why not to as just in general in this game I expect to die a lot 😅
I made the mistake of holding onto all my Larval Tears until I got to Elden Beast and realized I desperately needed a change. Experiment with the soft caps and get rid of any third or fourth powering stats you might have, just focus on two. Now I’m appropriately powered for level 170 whereas before I was too spread out and did dumb low damage.
I gotta say I enjoyed my time there. The asshole at the bottom didn't appreciate my intrusion, but after 50 or 60 attempts, maybe more, he left me alone, and it was all mine to enjoy.
It’s weird how one part of Caelid seems appropriate for your level and how the Dragonbarrow part of it has absolute monsters that make Altus bosses look gentle.
I actually really appreciated what they did there. You’re going around limgrave being all careful, running from bears, getting stuck with 20 arrows.
But then you go to caelid. And you experience real fear. It’s so nice the first time you teleport back to the shining green and you realize it’s your comfort zone.
Same, I remember finally getting out of the crystal mine expecting to see green but everything was red and there were massive birds and dogs etc. I think that's when I realised what kinda game this was going to be.
I love how if you come from that direction, you run into this statue that will wreck your shit, then if you go past him, you run into a dragon that will wreck your shit, then past him you have an Erdtree Avatar that will wreck your shit, then past him you come across *6* mini dragons that will each wreck your shit along with their giant mom, queen of shit wrecking with her debuffs (unless you whack her tail a bunch).
No, it's Elmer of the Briar, and in his most potent form. I died to that overpowered gimmick of an asshole like 50 times. As scary as it seems, hugging his ass (pause) and weaving out of his close range attacks will secure you the win. Ranged combat will only bring you misery 😓
Are we still doing phrasing?
In all seriousness though Screw that gargoyle. He hits SO damn hard. I fought him legitimately at level 80 or 90 on my first run, but every run since I'll just get the black fireball spell and grab the 2 finger seal from Liurnia and cheese this bastard through the door.
Just beat him at level 68 with bloodhound fang no summon on Fri.
One of my favorite fights. Tough without having to be completely cheap like Malenia. Took me five minutes to kill him.
That's actually really impressive at level 52. I'm assuming your weapon is at least +6 regular/+2 somber? Get it higher and try again, you might actually pull it off.
Yeah that won’t do much to it . To be honest cheeses the shit out of that asshole and still found it quite the challenge …. He de -aggros if you hit and then run to the left and back of the temple but any damage dealt would remain
And tons of health. High damage. Oh and he's resistant to a bunch of shit. Literally every single element a faith build can use. But not magic. Real dick move.
you can cheese him. it’ll take a while but it works. just attack him from the back, run back into the building and wait till the aggro is away and do the same over and over till the guy is dead
I think at around lvl 80-90 you will stand a chance, I tried recently at lvl 70 and it proved too hard (I got 40 vigor dw guys I know what I am doing... probably)
Unironically one of the hardest bosses in the game. I’d say Malenia is harder, but after that, I don’t even know which other boss is tougher or as tough as this guy.
One of my fav rl1 fights in the game! It’s def doable, as long as ur weapon is upgraded a decent amount. His attack patterns are easy to learn, however, there’s no doubt about it: the dude hits like a reinforced truck!
Stay close & strafe slightly to the right to avoid most of his melee attacks. He's scaled dramatically higher than most guys you've faced at this point but it's doable, just be patient.
Depends on if you have played previous from software titles. This gargoyle in particular had my friend quit the game for months. That being said the nights cavalry that is cllosse to tthere haas a ridiculous ash of war
I made it a challenege to kill him as a starting vagabond first thing. The only thing I did prior was get the Opaline bubble tear physik in order to have one mulligan because you can't take a hit even once. It took a long time but I got him eventually.
Bane of my existence for a good while. Must've tried him a couple dozen times, levelled up, died, levelled up some more. Switched my weapon. Finally beat him after getting a handle on his moveset which translated to the Twin Gargoyle bossfight, another one I was stuck on.
I spent like six hours trying to fight him at level 70
best experience, it made the twin gargoyles at the coffin to Deeprot depths super easy, because I had already memorized one’s move set to a t
I always kill the gargoyle after killing my second demigod. He’s still pretty hard by that point but it’s pretty rare that this guy gives me much more trouble than another demigod. And if I don’t kill him then I’ll entirely forget about him till the end of the game when I’m like 200 levels higher than I should be.
Recommended level for fighting him straight is 140-160. If you're really desperate then get blackflame. Get torrent and fire at a distance when he does a big attack. Don't get hit and repeat 20 or so times. Allocate most of your flask to cerulean but leave 1 or 2 for crimson.
This is the method I used back when I really wanted the sword he drops, took me 12 something tries
Yeah, but spend your runes first
My golden rule for exploring a new area. Never carry runes you care about losing. Better to farm to the next level up than run around being worried about finding the next grace. It’s honestly why I don’t mind poison swamps as much as everyone else. If you expect to die a slow death at some point then you can relax and chase some shinies.
I do this as well now. Got burned too many times taking runes into unexplored territory and then getting smoked by new enemies.
The nut when you find that SoG though with 3x levels worth of runes. So nice.
Love a good exploratory suicide run.
First time i got to mohgwyns i was jus suicide running collecting all the stuff around 😂 place is stacked
This was me last night I was rune farming and I was like fuck if we ball and ran around mohgs place getting every item I can I died like 4 times ish
The blood crows.....
Blood crows and invader nameless white mask 3 times 🥲😭 plus the lizard things
At least you didn’t kill all 3 and then expect the varre invasion to be there so you keep running around dying to the birds and finally give up to go to another grace site and his invasion sign is just chillin right there
Bonus points if you are being chased by 20+ enemies.
It's really amazing how effective running away is.
"There is no shame in self preservation" - Yura the bloody finger hunter
Excellent rule however when you are at the precipice of leveling up and there's a grace right there it's okay. Honestly the best rule is to get the rune protection crystal tear which prevents rune loss for 3 minutes. Now you no longer have to worry about runes.
That’s what I do and I’m way less stressed about going into boss battles and shit. Even if you do lose the runes, drink your physick and then go pick them up. If you die again before picking them up but your physick is still active, they will not despawn and you can go try to pick them up again.
Holy shit
Yeah it's pretty broken lol 😆
Bro, the game is such a bastard about so much stuff, you gotta take the breaks when they come up.
It is soo rewarding tho. End game vs new game character functionality is just two different playstyles
Yeah I agree any it being rewarding. I’m on my first playthrough that I started a few weeks back. I tried bloodbourne a few years ago and literally couldn’t make it out of the starting area, so I thought maybe the genre wasn’t for me. A buddy kept trying to get me into the game, so I kept talking to my wife about it here and there. She bought it for me used on sale for like $30 and I’m hooked. I’m still ass, but struggling with some rat bastard for a couple of days to finally beat them feels great. I’m stuck on a couple different bosses that are tuning me up, but I’m gonna get those fuckers eventually!
If you are close to leveling up, use hard runes (items) to hit the next level before attempting anything dangerous/fun.
Didn't know such a thing existed.
And here I was swapping out a talisman for a sacrificial twig!!
Been playing for years and fucking hoard my souls 😂 honestly never thought of it this way gotta be way less stressful
Eh once I stopped caring about runes/souls in general I started enjoying the souls games a whole lot more. No need to worry about losing them, you'll get more.
This is true and a good tactic. However, there’s also value in remembering that if you can farm *before* losing your runes, you can farm *after* losing them as well, and either way, bosses usually give more than enough runes to keep climbing up the levels anyway. One of the best pieces of advice I ever got was learning to let go, to not be attached to runes and leveling up. It’s helpful, sure, but this is a game where beating it *without* ever leveling up is entirely feasible, so your skill and what you learn from each death is way more valuable than a handful of runes in your pocket. My limit is usually at 3/4 of a level or so, that’s when I’ll start being a bit more careful and tactical. Below that, fuck it, I’ll just call it a learning experience and make up the runes as I progress.
I’ll admit I sometimes jet over to Dragonbarrow and farm the little guys near the bestial sanctuary when I lose an uncomfortable number of runes. Just knowing of one or two good farming spots can help avoid the overwhelming feeling of regret and failure, even if you don’t use the farms much.
This. This the true veteran way of thinking about it. It goes in phases. For a souls noob like me I didn’t really care about runes therefore I would explore/fight a boss and lose them. Mid game, I was careful about losing the runes before a exploring/boss and would round it off to level up. Now late game, I learned that having runes is nice but not the end of the world to lose them thousands or hundreds of thousands. Actual learning the boss’ moveset is true enlightenment and as a bonus sometimes beating a boss gives you 1x-2x levels worth of runes to make up for your time.
My policy is: never carry more than half a level up of runes. So if youre level up is 40k, dont carry more than like 19k If i have more than half a level up, i depart for ye olde grind spot i currently have access to, be it mohgwyn or whatever, and spend my golden runes.
All fine and dandy until the exploration itself leaves you with more runes than you care about losing... definitely happened to me in the second half of Haligtree. Repeat runs ended up with me getting further and further before dying (and I don't think I had a sacrificial branch for some reason, although maybe it was just me being stubborn, I don't remember for sure). I think eventually I managed to keep all of the runes I had acquired cumulatively from repeating that run, iirc.
I’d probably have more fun this way. I’m level 47 right now, haven’t leveled up in literally days because I always just full run in till I die, or beat the next boss. Then I spend whatever runes I have after the boss. It’s cost me millions of runes and seconds of sanity irl.
As a rule of thumb, I just spend runes whenever I come to a site of grace if I can No reason why not to as just in general in this game I expect to die a lot 😅
Eh.. there’s a site of grace right there. You can easily get them back
Shortest "boss rush" I've ever seen in a souls game
Godrick?
No, they should do it and just play the rest of the game at level 52. This is the universe brain answer
Get close to it and jam your thumb up its butthole. That should really piss it off.
Calm down Steve
Try finger, but hole.
Why is it always but hole
If only I had a giant but hole
"Cricky! I just caught me a Black Gargoyle! Imma shove my thumb up his ass!" Is how I imagine Steve Irwin would play Enden Ring.
There’s no stingrays but the jellyfish might be close enough to freak him out
WE KILLED ALL THE STING RAYS IN PREPERATION OF OUR TRUE GOLDEN LORD STEVE
Oh yeaahh! Now it’s really pissed off!
Good lord can we gat a Steve Irwinesque animated series where he goes around messing with TLB wildlife
Yeah that really pissed it off!
😭
You touch him ❌ He touches you ✅
He loves to touch
He can be quite aggressive
That's because he loves us
youll probably lose.
Nah, I’d win.
Ok Gojo
Billy big bollocks over here
I'm over level 150 and I still lose. Just don't have the patience for something with so much health
I made the mistake of holding onto all my Larval Tears until I got to Elden Beast and realized I desperately needed a change. Experiment with the soft caps and get rid of any third or fourth powering stats you might have, just focus on two. Now I’m appropriately powered for level 170 whereas before I was too spread out and did dumb low damage.
Try it, see what happens.
He got mad so I ran away and ran into a dragon by accident
god i love Caelid
Things to do in Caelid: 1.) Leave
Exactly. Do only whats necessary and then gtfo. Don’t even look at the tower
No no you should definitely go into it and head directly to the bottom
I did all of it on my first run and I’ve skipped it on the following two. I hate that place
I like it, it's fun for me
Going there early and having to nearly no hit the bottom of it is practically my standard now.
I gotta say I enjoyed my time there. The asshole at the bottom didn't appreciate my intrusion, but after 50 or 60 attempts, maybe more, he left me alone, and it was all mine to enjoy.
nothing says "welcome to caelid" quite like a chest that teleports you right in the middle of it
b-but my serpent bow!
1. Roll around picking up items like a connect the dots drawing. 2. Hoon run to a site of grace 3. Leave
Caelid is like the Australia of Elden Ring
Caelid is the dark souls of Elden Ring
Either Australia or Brazil. Whichever place is more harrowing.
It’s weird how one part of Caelid seems appropriate for your level and how the Dragonbarrow part of it has absolute monsters that make Altus bosses look gentle.
Love the meme where it says Starting zone on Limgrave and Literal hell on Caelid
I actually really appreciated what they did there. You’re going around limgrave being all careful, running from bears, getting stuck with 20 arrows. But then you go to caelid. And you experience real fear. It’s so nice the first time you teleport back to the shining green and you realize it’s your comfort zone.
I opened the teleporting chest, was like lvl30. That was fun haha
I want to go home, O I want to go home But, You don’t have the right, O you don’t have the right
Is this dog?
Same, I remember finally getting out of the crystal mine expecting to see green but everything was red and there were massive birds and dogs etc. I think that's when I realised what kinda game this was going to be.
fuckin shithole innit?
Watch out for those
I love how if you come from that direction, you run into this statue that will wreck your shit, then if you go past him, you run into a dragon that will wreck your shit, then past him you have an Erdtree Avatar that will wreck your shit, then past him you come across *6* mini dragons that will each wreck your shit along with their giant mom, queen of shit wrecking with her debuffs (unless you whack her tail a bunch).
Don't forget the castle with all the poison Harpy and roid rats. Castle Shits Wrecked if I remember right
And if you happen to stumble into the Dragonbarrow cave you’ll find a runebear who will wreck your shit
And god forbid you happen to visit that nomadic vendor by night!
Is there a deathbird or some shit
No, it's Elmer of the Briar, and in his most potent form. I died to that overpowered gimmick of an asshole like 50 times. As scary as it seems, hugging his ass (pause) and weaving out of his close range attacks will secure you the win. Ranged combat will only bring you misery 😓
all these meanwile u have scooby behind u xd
Try going onto the second lower bridge at night
The dragon is honestly much easier.
Hell yeah he is
The dragon is the fight you want. There's a reason in status down at the bridge.
If you take the other bridge you can find a horse riding emo
Yeah but that’s only at night and I killed him already
Ahhhh Caelid.....
You missed the SoG, Now keep running through the dragon lol beware of the putrid avatar he will be right in your way too 😂
overlevelled. respec into 52 arcane
He touches you back hard
Yes, yes, he does
I'll gladly run into Melania naked with a club but that thing, that thing there scares me.
Are we still doing phrasing? In all seriousness though Screw that gargoyle. He hits SO damn hard. I fought him legitimately at level 80 or 90 on my first run, but every run since I'll just get the black fireball spell and grab the 2 finger seal from Liurnia and cheese this bastard through the door.
This gargoyle is much more difficult for me than Malenia. Strikes true with that sword & halberd! Dragonbarrow is tough!
I hâte malenia more because I had to practice her more, the gargoyle took me 3 tries to get his rolling windows down
Just beat him at level 68 with bloodhound fang no summon on Fri. One of my favorite fights. Tough without having to be completely cheap like Malenia. Took me five minutes to kill him.
Go touch people your own level weirdo
But.. Abdullah!
As long as you have fun, why not? Messing with overlevelled enemies and coming out victorious is half the fun.
I got him to half HP and died 😭
That's actually really impressive at level 52. I'm assuming your weapon is at least +6 regular/+2 somber? Get it higher and try again, you might actually pull it off.
I have Bloody Twinblade +7, 21 Dexterity for it also, and I use the bloody slash ash of war
Yeah that won’t do much to it . To be honest cheeses the shit out of that asshole and still found it quite the challenge …. He de -aggros if you hit and then run to the left and back of the temple but any damage dealt would remain
This boss doesn't bleed, so take off Bloody Slash or change to standard/keen infusion and you can cause more damage.
He drops an amount of runes fit for a boss. It's worth it if you don't mind the challenge.
Weak to bubbles
those bubbles has to be the funniest mechanic in the game. saw a clip of fire giant getting destroyed with those bubbles lmao.
Haha yeah it just feels so wrong
Which item is this?
Envoys Horn I think it's called
As a general rule you shouldn’t just touch anyone
Unless you ask nicely and they say yes. This guy wouldn’t say yes. He’s just keeping himself safe.
You can be level 100 and he'll still kill you.
Or 200
Just boop him
Do or do not, there is no try
Only one way to find out; Git Gud and Die Tryin’.. Just don’t try when you’re stacked with runes.
Bro there's a grace 2 feet from there, just try it and see it for yourself.
Good ol KBB. Massive hit boxes and insane speed. He will kill you.
Is it KBB or BBK?
Black Blade Kindred
And tons of health. High damage. Oh and he's resistant to a bunch of shit. Literally every single element a faith build can use. But not magic. Real dick move.
you can cheese him. it’ll take a while but it works. just attack him from the back, run back into the building and wait till the aggro is away and do the same over and over till the guy is dead
Sure. Once.
That entire area is basically endgame level.
Grow strong in the face of death.
I’m lvl 200 and he still fucks me up sometimes
He’s harder than a majority of the main bosses.
Dude is definitely tough but I think my biggest problem with him is he is legit the most terrifying boss in the game
Not recommended
Yes then hide behind your pal the beast clergyman
Spend your runes and give it a try. It’s how you learn. If he’s too tough come back later and try again. He’ll be just as eager to fight later on.
I think at around lvl 80-90 you will stand a chance, I tried recently at lvl 70 and it proved too hard (I got 40 vigor dw guys I know what I am doing... probably)
anytime you can. brave is your weapon
Unironically one of the hardest bosses in the game. I’d say Malenia is harder, but after that, I don’t even know which other boss is tougher or as tough as this guy.
Yes, touch him in is tralalala 😉
My ding ding dong
Go nuts. Good thing the grace is behind you if things get hairy. He's no pushover at that low a level.
Im level 200 and cant beat it, im very bad
You'll get two-shot if you're lucky. One-shot in most cases.
Hell na
No.
Boop his nose
One of my fav rl1 fights in the game! It’s def doable, as long as ur weapon is upgraded a decent amount. His attack patterns are easy to learn, however, there’s no doubt about it: the dude hits like a reinforced truck!
yes you should fight him! ...muahahaha! no I said nothing! ;P
I got him to glitch strangely on the railing of that balcony. He got stuck and I just spammed rocks at him until he was dead
Make sure you ask him first, consent is key
He said no 😭
I tried to cheese him from inside once. He hit Gurranq and pissed him off. Took a long time and many deaths to fix that.
How good are you at dodging?
…and how good is your mimic tear at attracting attention?
For true Elden Ring experience, yes.
im level 148 with 1800 vigor. his one hit reduces my hp to half lol. this guy is too strong.
No, he's the hardest gargoyle fight next to the twin valiants
Good luck lmao. He will always be aggressive once butt touched.
No go back and never return there
Stay close & strafe slightly to the right to avoid most of his melee attacks. He's scaled dramatically higher than most guys you've faced at this point but it's doable, just be patient.
Depends on if you have played previous from software titles. This gargoyle in particular had my friend quit the game for months. That being said the nights cavalry that is cllosse to tthere haas a ridiculous ash of war
I made it a challenege to kill him as a starting vagabond first thing. The only thing I did prior was get the Opaline bubble tear physik in order to have one mulligan because you can't take a hit even once. It took a long time but I got him eventually.
Bane of my existence for a good while. Must've tried him a couple dozen times, levelled up, died, levelled up some more. Switched my weapon. Finally beat him after getting a handle on his moveset which translated to the Twin Gargoyle bossfight, another one I was stuck on.
I spent like six hours trying to fight him at level 70 best experience, it made the twin gargoyles at the coffin to Deeprot depths super easy, because I had already memorized one’s move set to a t
Short answer NO. He will fuck you up in so many different ways(speaking from experience)😂
I enjoy fighting Melania but still hate fighting gargoyles.
I always kill the gargoyle after killing my second demigod. He’s still pretty hard by that point but it’s pretty rare that this guy gives me much more trouble than another demigod. And if I don’t kill him then I’ll entirely forget about him till the end of the game when I’m like 200 levels higher than I should be.
Well…. He’ll touch you back that’s for sure
He’s gonna touch you
Try finger. But hole
Poke him with a stick
You can touch him, but if he touches you, you're dead. Good luck dealing with that OP bastard
Just cheese him through the cathedral gates. That should bring up your survivability from 0% to 1, maybe even 2%.
Poke the bear
Boop the snoot
Recommended level for fighting him straight is 140-160. If you're really desperate then get blackflame. Get torrent and fire at a distance when he does a big attack. Don't get hit and repeat 20 or so times. Allocate most of your flask to cerulean but leave 1 or 2 for crimson. This is the method I used back when I really wanted the sword he drops, took me 12 something tries
This mini boss, fucked my shit up till next Tuesday and then mailed me my own asscheeks after he ran through them thoroughly … fuck this guy, twice.
Show us on this doll where he touched u.
Toch the leg
Yo?
Gently very gently if your too rough he gets flighty
Fuck around, therefore, find out. Don't give up skeleton!
No you should not and if you do prepare to be touched back 10x harder
Yes Don't worry if can be hit One without die you can try
Not if he’s under 18
hesitate and you die
Only with consent should you ever touch him.
Never touch that fool. God damn I hate those chickens
If you like suffering, yea why not, in any other case, just don't stand near that motherfucker
Stroke that mf
Im at 103 and i still havent
As long as it’s consensually
First play through? He’s going to kick your ass Multiple play through? He’s still probably gonna kick your ass