I felt bad. I came for the spectacle I’d read so much about and got an angry guy on a little horse.
Awww... well, I'm glad I got there when he was still powerful enough that I was blown away by the sheer scale and magnatude of the fight. When he's that much stronger than you and you're fighting him on horseback while half a dozen summons take him on and he can combo you to death at any time it's quite something. Totally new Souls experience, though all the shardbearers kind of bring something unique to the table.
Anyway, on that note, as I said I'm doing a Rune Level 1 (RL1) run and it's pretty damn captivating! Here's a running diary from the experience this month (to clarify, it's captivating for
ME to play, YMMV reading about it =):
April 9th
I started an RL1 character because NG+ was boring (my guy really is the Elden Lord at this point)... and it's pretty engaging! I've only done this before with Bloodborne (where the lowest available level is Blood Level 4, or BL4). It makes the world and everything in it feel bigger, more significant and intimidating. I'm really exploring now, and you just can't afford to tank hits, even against the weaker soldiers and knights. It sounds like the opposite of fun, but it forces you to engage and strategize your exploration, attacks and available abilities because if you try running in with some swashbuckling shenanigans against even a small group of soldiers you're dead (like DS1 =).
I played this way for three hours straight in Limgrave and I felt like I knew the lay of the land, literally and figuratively, better than after the whole time I played the game with my other character. The Tree Sentinel at the beginning suddenly feels like some truly insurmountable boss. Some people are doing RL1+0 weapon upgrades, which really just sounds masochistic. I'm not going to do that, but I am considering whether I want to use the summoning creatures or purely "solo" everything. And by everything, I mean the few bosses necessary to beat the game or until I "lose interest" or "The game and I mutually decided to part ways."
April 11th
Now that my weapons are upgraded a bit I'm playing more like the normal game, just not tanking hits obviously. I got past Godrick and managed to breech the Capital early too (mainly to get the Raging Wolf armor set), and I know of another skip that'll get me to
Crumbing Faram Azula so I can raid it for resources too. We'll see how long this satisfies me or if I get tired of having to perfect the dance with each boss. I haven't ruled the summons out completely if I want to move things along.
The best part of this run: I took my default saved character appearance, a stunning likeness of myself, schlubbiness and all, but made this version huge, tan and totally buff with flowing blown back hair. I have him in no armor for movement speed save for some brown/black leather armor covered pants and boots. He looks like a moving Frank Frazetta painting of Conan the Barbarian. I can't wait to see him become Elden Lord by his own hand, after he strangles the mad witch Ranni first, of course!
April 13th
I haven't been able to really play seriously since I beat Godrick, which was one of those where I practiced all day, then dispatched him easily that night, which is probably what all these guys will take. Yet, even though I haven't beat another shardbearer I'm all the way to
Crumbling Faram Azula through those wrong warping shenanigans. Maybe I should try beating the game in 6 minutes like the YouTubers do. Though I don't really think that shit counts to be honest, it's too much just breaking the game and not actually playing it.
April 17th
Got past
Godfrey's golden phantom using the Serpent Hunter spear (no stat requirements =) and now it's on to
Morgott, though technically I already have access to the
Godskin Duo, so I'm collecting sleeping pots as well. I wonder what would happen if I beat
Malekith without
lighting the tree first? Would it just bypass that part or would I need to do it after anyway? Well, I'm not sure how I'm going to pass
Malekith period, so it's a moot point.
April 19th
They updated the game to 1.04 in the middle of my playthrough yesterday and I'm scared they're gonna nerf my build before I can exploit another boss! After shackling
Morgott, l bleed-crossbow'd the
Fire Giant last night, which is actually when I got booted offline, in the middle of that fight, "No way am I restarting only to find this guy is now bleed resistant." I know I'm going to put the
Godskin Duo to sleep ultimately (got a dozen pots ready), but I'm still not sure of my
Malekith plan (run?).
I left the game on in rest mode in order to bypass the update in case I don't like the nerfs and fixes, only to be informed by my PS5 upon wake up that it downloaded the patch, closed the program, and installed it while sleeping! Oh well, I guess the next time I want to potentially be a sneaky fucker I'll turn it off. I'm at least relieved I don't have to go to the trouble of delaying the update indefinitely for however long I continue the run.
April 20th
Well, it turns out patch 1.04 completely broke the bosses so that initiating their second phase with procs like blood, freeze, rot, etc instantly kills them from the affliction! Now I have to consider NOT taking advantage of this for the integrity of the RL1 run lol
April 21st
I finally took the duo down after a few too many rage-enducing tries last night, including a couple where I involuntarily exclaimed, "Nooooo!" or something more vulgar. Then when they fucking died my whole mood suddenly brightened up, Mr. Fuckin' Sunshine after being pissy for at least an hour straight. These games are bad for you. =)
April 22nd
So, they nerfed one of the most effective ways to beat
Maliketh without high stats, basically a shield Ash of War that could create projectiles that did thousands of damage from a distance... but now it does like 500. I was building towards this, but I guess it's back to the drawing board (at least I didn't max upgrade a shield yet)! I'm sure someone will eventually post a video showing how to teleport through the boss room and his body and instantly glitch kill him. It's that innate reward of overcoming a challenge like Miyazaki says!
April 23rd
Anyway, with all the shit they left broken or broke further they had to nerf the most effective method for the one mandatory boss I was really worried about (it wasn't even THAT easy to pull off with how agressive he is). I guess
Godfrey and
Radagon/Elden Beast are no pushovers either though, but I'll figure them out or naturally lose interest if it's just miserable.
I'm approaching it like just playing the boss is recreational (which, technically this all is =), how long can you keep up the dance, how many more effective methods can you find, keep adding to that until the odds are in your favor, etc. Of course, much easier to enjoy and succeed with that approach with against Godrick than these late game monsters. But fuck it, level 1 basically just means they all 1-shot you anyway.
April 25th
I'm working on a super OP bleed/frost build that basically does 4000+ damage combos to melt these guys before they can one hit me. I'm also trying to balance that out, basically find the perfect combination of health and protection talismans that allow me to consistently take a hit from most of these guys normal attacks so at least I can back out if I'm careful, heal and fight semi-normally. I don't mind getting insta-killed by falling for multi-hit combos or big moves that should kill you anyway if you can't avoid them, but when the
Beast Clergyman can basically insta-spin and backhand me to death with his rear foot, that's not fun anymore.
April 26th
I'm actually feeling pretty close to having either a really effective glass cannon, like kills bosses in minutes or less, or a talisman-based build that'll give me enough HP and protection that I can survive a hit, heal, repeat and therefore play somewhat normally. We're talking like 500 HP and 45-50 percent protection so I'm more like a normal HP character with regular/low protection or something. Otherwise, I've kind of been up against it with
Malekith for a while now, best I've done is get him down to 60% health, not quite enough to trigger his second phase (I wonder if that status proc'ing glitch works on him; probably not due to the break/cutscene =). I'm focusing more on prep and improving my character than practicing the fight at this point, but soon enough I'm going to hit the ceiling on improvements I can make that aren't to my own technique, skill and familiarity against him.