Elden Ring (George RR Martin and From Software)

I've still been jumping in a little bit. Spent an hour or so last night trying (unsuccessfully) to help people beat Malenia. Well, there was hopefully one who succeeded considering I purposefully sacrificed myself when she was nearing death to pull aggro and take her waterfowl attack so the Host wouldn't be killed by it. But I didn't get to see the end.

But I've also still been finding caves that I hadn't done, through seeing videos of weapons or items other people have, realising I don't have them, and googling to find out where the tunnels are.

Think I might need to respec to rivers of blood my strength build and hitting things is making the crumbling farum azula and Melina very tough

Well, finally rolled credits yesterday evening, Im both sorry and glad that its over, I still have to do Melenia, but I'll come back to her in my own time. I finished at level 156 and with a shade over 100 hours played.

Truly, one of the best game worlds I've ever played, no corner felt like it served no purpose, or was rushed, as has been the case in previous From games.

I don't know how they'll ever top this.

What way does your sword scale? I’m no expert but it looks like you have stats in every thing as apposed to more focused.

I have a strength dex focus and nothing really in int arc or fait

Yeah you need to start focusing your abilities to a particular type of build to maximise damage. Even if you consider what types of spells you use most, levelling up and using a different seal/staff can make them more powerful (eg. using the Godslayer seal makes black flame spells do more damage, Clawmark seal boosts Beast spells). You should also consider a new weapon that scales best with your highest stats (so in this case Faith), but because you haven't been levelling Strength or Dex, you might not be able to use them.

I'd say it might be best respeccing at Rennala and picking and focusing on either Faith or Int rather than both, then adding some points into Strength or Dex (depending on what weapon you want to go with), and then throwing some more points into Vigor and Mind (because given the level you're at, there are going to start to be a lot more enemies who will be able to tank a lot of your hits but will one-shot you due to your low Vigor).

Also make sure to use talismans and armours which can boost whatever stats you need too, or to improve your durability to compensate for low vigor.

Was getting bored of trying to help others defeat Malenia (started getting a good few wins, but so many of the hosts got killed by her aeonia attack at the start of phase 2 that it really started to annoy me), so decided to try duels at the Academy Gate.

Didn't do too bad, won more than lost. Mostly running an Int sorcery build with Wing of Astel for up close. Some duelists are absolute tanks with the heaviest armour and shield and there's f*ck all you can do with them. Some hide a helper to come out and double team you. But for the most part it's a lot of fun.

Ye I mentioned it before that the soundtrack is rather not memorable this time around, DS3 soundtrack stood out more wasn't it, Sekiro was ok (again short game/side project) but still have more memorable soundtracks than ER for me ha.

The most memorable/best music from ER is the main theme - which makes the final fight incredible but ya other than that....I actually cant recall much of the soundtracks - except background theme when we are roaming the world. I think that may be part of the cons for an open world game?

(And of course my obligatory best sounds From game would be BB, I still get chills now whenever I think of the bosses from it - oh my horse dude your soundtrack is sublime and imprinted into my soul)

Main theme is an absolute banger, but yeah, I'm hard pressed to even tell you a single other piece that stood out to me.

For weapon scaling, where it shows the weapon damage (say 192 + 84), the 84 is the extra damage the weapon does due to weapon scaling. So a weapon with C scaling will do more bonus damage than D, B does better than C etc.

If a weapon has B Faith Scaling and D Strength scaling, it means you'll do more damage if you have more points in Faith, and upgrading Faith will increase the weapon damage more. Also important to note that as you upgrade a weapon, the scaling may increase (eg. a Faith weapon with C scaling might increase to A or S scaling as you upgrade it, meaning it'll do a lot more damage with more points in Faith).

So it's important to pick a weapon that might work best with your current stats, as the weapon scaling will greatly increase the damage it does. Same goes for staff/seals as it can increase the power of spells.

Finally, after 116 hours I finished it, it was down to pure stubbornness in the end that I persevered but I suppose it was worth it.

I don't no where to start to be honest, I'm glad it's over tbh, the later parts of the game were rough and I felt burnt out with it, I don't even think I enjoyed it towards the end.

The hardest boss for me was Radagon and Elden Beast, getting through Radagon wasn't really the issue it's just when you do beat him you're going into Elden Beast depleted and that boss is a war of attrition, he just keeps running and running away it's very difficult with a mele build, so long and drawn out, no way that should of been a double boss imo but they were doubling up bosses all late game so I wasn't all that surprised.

I did all of Ashen Capital before the Haligtree because I was honestly going to skip Malenia due to her being optional I was that burnt out with it, but today I decide to give it a go, the Haligtree area was a nightmare, probably the hardest area of the game, I found myself just running through the area getting to graces just to get to the boss, it's not a fun area to explore because of the usual bullshit, overpowered enemies in huge numbers and traps and weird frustrating layouts.

Anyway I got to her and managed to beat her on my 3-4 attempt, I was surprised because she was touted as being the hardest boss in the game but I didn't find her that bad, it's just a case of being aggressive to stop her healing and blocking that huge special attack she has and running under her when she does that massive rot AOE.

I found the mimic tear to be invaluable, I actually got the mimic very late and honestly it was a game changer, at plus 10 it's very good, very tanky and puts out good damage, got me through the game really and I hear the mimic was nerfed a bit too, can't imaging how strong it was before.

Overall I enjoyed the game, but I do think they tried to do too much, I don't think a 100+ hour game suits a soul's like difficulty/experience, you inevitably become burn out with it, as I said it was stubbornness in the end and I was glad it was over.

It looked and played beautifully, I thought the areas were well designed and aesthetically everything looked amazing, it's a solid 7/10 game for me, but it's no where near as good as its being touted as in my opinion.

I've had my fill of Elden Ring. I may come back to it when the DLC comes out but I may have played it so much that I'm burnt out on it.

Bloodborne, Elden Ring, Dark Souls 2: SotFS, Dark Souls, Dark Souls 3 would be my ranking of Soulsbornes.

I think it's time to finally try Sekiro.

I would agree with your tier list but have only played Bloodborne, ER and DSIII.

I loved ER the whole way through but it had very little re-playability compared to BB, which just resonated with me at some level for some reason

The haligtree is burning me out big time. The enemies are a huge step up from other areas