Various Thoughts

Noskella ended up pretty much the same as Nokron, just with a much easier boss fight. Deeproot Depths, similarly, doesn’t have much of note danger-wise (although the boss fight is tougher since you don’t have access to your horse).

After those two areas it seemed I’d been worrying for nothing… but then I arrived at the Lake of Rot. This location is extremely unpleasant. Both because of the unavoidable scarlet rot soup you have to wade through (which will trigger rot in ~10 seconds even if you’re in full mushroom gear with double Immunity talismans) and because the enemies hit quite hard. The area’s pretty small though and the Dragonkin boss can at least be drawn over to the cliffside where you can safety pelt it with ranged attacks from above (good luck fighting the Tree Spirit though; I ended up skipping it).

The last sidequest location at this point happened to be that formerly unreachable plateau in southwest Liurnia. Not much up there really besides a pretty nasty evergaol fight. That one took awhile, though not as long as the Crucible Knight one since at least this enemy could be easily staggered.

Once all that was done I was level 121 (Vig 40, End 25, Str 12, Dex 50, Fai 23, Arc 30) with Reduvia +9, Great Knife +20, Eleonora’s Poleblade +8, Nightrider Flail +20, Serpent Bow +8, Dragon Communion Seal +7, Mimic Ashes +10, Fanged Imp/Greatshield Ashes +9, and Ancestral Follower/Jellyfish Ashes +8.

Now it was time to tackle the Mountaintop of the Giants, which I’d heard was where the game took a nosedive. Personally I don’t see it. The area’s pretty unique and apart from the oddity of seeing a bunch of enemies from Caelid here nothing felt particularly phoned in. In terms of danger the only location that stands out is Castle Sol, which features spectral versions of those windy knights found in Stormveil. The boss fight features them as well and stalled my progress for some time (Greatshield summon reliably distracts the shield knight and boss, but the twin-greatsword knight kept murdering me).

Once the Fire Giant fell (don’t see why anyone would have trouble with him, he’s just a 2-legged dragon) I was level 131 (End 30, Arc 35) and now using Rivers of Blood +9, Wakizashi +23, Dragon Communion Seal +9, Mimic Ashes +10, and Fanged Imp/Greatshield/Ancestral Follower Ashes +9.

After a quick trip to kill Rykard (who is in fact quite hard for a melee character if you don’t use the special spear it wants you to use) and before moving on to the the penultimate area, there was one more sidequest location to visit: The Consecrated Snowfield, which in turn allows access to Mohgwyn Palace and the Haligtree.

The snowfield comes across very much like a DLC area with all the endgame materials strewn about alongside the bizarre palette-swapped bosses. It’s pretty bad and half-assed really. Surprisingly not all that dangerous though so long as you don’t try to fight everything you come across head-on (or at all in some cases). Mohgwyn Palace meanwhile is extremely dangerous since its basic enemies hit quite hard and the giant crows in particular will chase you forever. Fantastic place to grind for Runes though, if that’s your thing.

With those cleared it was finally time to visit the Haligtree. Heard lots of horror stories about this location… and it absolutely lives up to them. This is just a real dangerous location all-around, whose only saving grace is that most of the trash mobs are easy to kill. The boss in particular is nastier than most in that she can both heal-on-hit and has a brutal 3-second, staggered, multi-hit combo that will basically kill you if any part of it connects. Allegedly there’s a fancy way to dodge this with 100% reliability… but you’d need bullet-hell reflexes to pull it off in the given timeframe. Better to have her use it on your spirit summon, or hit her with a Freezing Pot when she starts floating, instead.

Then the second phase starts.

She gets her health back and starts off with a meteor strike that, incongruously, you have to run toward to avoid. After that it pretty much plays out the same as before, except she might do one of several instant-kill moves after floating upward. It’s real unpleasant overall. Took about 10 or so tries to beat her at level 156 (Vig 60, Arc 40) with Mimic Ashes +10, Rivers of Blood +10, Wakizashi (Arcane) +25, Dragon Communion Seal +10, Swarm of Flies, and Freezing Pot & Raw Meat Dumpling on my item wheel. Also had Nightrider Flail +25, Serpent Bow +10, and Fanged Imp/Ancestral Follower Ashes +10 by that point.

All that’s left now is Farum Azula and the final boss rush.

Liurnia turned out to be a pretty easy area with no difficult enemies of note, though I also ended up having to clear Siofra River since I accidentally skipped it earlier. Which turned out to be a fortunate occurrence since there are some pretty nasty ancestral spirits infesting that area. Anyway, after clearing everything but the Divine Tower and southwestern plateau (both of which are tied to a later quest) I was level 63 (Vig 19, End 25, Str 12, Dex 31, Fai 15, Arc 20) and still using the Reduvia/Great Knife combo (+3 and +11 at the time).

Next up was Caelid, which is a noticeable spike in difficulty. Quite a number of nasty enemies here. The stand-outs being the Crystalian trio in Sellia Hideaway (which I decided to skip since they don’t drop anything useful to me and I had no good summons that did strike damage) and Black Blade Kindred in front of the Bestial Sanctum (had to ultimately use Skeletal Militiamen +4 as a semi-renewable decoy). Apparently Radahn was much harder in earlier versions of the game, but as of v1.03.2 at least his difficulty is roughly on par with the two previous Grand Rune holders.

At the time of his defeat I was level 87 (Vig 31, End 25, Str 12, Dex 43, Fai 15, Arc 20) with: Reduvia +6, Great Knife +15, Eleonora’s Poleblade +5, & Nightrider Flail +12. Since then I’ve cleared the few remaining Caelid areas (besides those Crystalians) and have started exploring Nokron.

While I don’t dislike the game at this point, it as yet hasn’t done anything to change my initial impression. So… it’s okayish as something to intermittently play while taking breaks to do other stuff.

Just cleared the first of the game‘s Legacy Dungeons (Stormveil Castle), two of which apparently have to be completed in order to beat the game.

Did it at level 45 (17 Vig, 25 End, 12 Str, 22 Dex, 15 Arc) after having cleared the rest of Limgrave (aside from the Divine Tower) and all of the Weeping Peninsula. Dual-wielded Reduvia +2 and Great Knife +6 for the majority of the dungeon, with a bit of help from the Serpent Bow to peel stragglers off the bigger packs. It took a surprisingly long time but the only really difficult parts were not getting lost and dealing with the murder birds. Though I guess the knights with their apparently unstoppable windy homing attack combo were also pretty nasty.

The Tree Spirit in the basement would have been hard if I hadn’t already defeated the tougher version in the Fringefolk Hero’s Grave. Neither of them hold a candle to the Crucible Knight however, who is easily the toughest enemy you’ll find in these first two zones. I ended up having to use the Spear +7 a certain NPC drops to finally beat him (the range on the charged attack is perfect for hitting him after a roll) since he’s immune to Bleed and poison arrows weren’t doing anything… besides being blocked more often than not.

Apart from the stuff noted above, another key offensive item is the Fanged Imp Ashes I chose as a starting item. Choosing them was the best decision I’ve ever made blind. There’s two of them, they dodge, are resistant/immune to poison, have a ranged attack, and cause Bleed. Just incredibly powerful against single targets and great for evening the field against multiple targets. That said, I’ve also used the Jellyfish Ashes against the Erdtree Avatar and the Rotten Stray Ashes against that aforementioned Fringefolk boss battle.

Now to clear Liumia next, where there’s apparently an insanely overpowered weapon waiting in one of dungeons. Which will be nice to have the next time I run into another Crucible Knight situation.

With the whole ‘open world’ thing I was kind of hoping that this was going to be more like Dragon’s Dogma than a classic Souls game.

It’s not. It’s extremely Dark Souls in terms of gameplay (albeit with Sekiro‘s stealth system), which I consider notably inferior balance-wise to DD. The exploration/discovery aspects on the other hand are far, far better. Exploring the various nooks and crannies of the map actually feels legitimately rewarding, with plenty of unique or unusual things to find scattered about… which puts me in a bit of a bind.

I want to keep playing to collect stuff, but don’t really want to deal with bullshit enemies or the ‘dodge 10 attacks, strike once or twice’ style of boss fight the game seems especially fond of. Well, I’ll play it by ear I guess with a focus toward a Dex/Arcane build targeted toward weapons like Eleonora’s Poleblade, Rivers of Blood, Reduvia, Ripple Blade, and the Serpent Bow.

Some extremely important things to do right at the start which aren’t immediately obvious:

– Clearing the Tutorial area rewards a gesture.
– Once you get outside, head north to find a ruined church.
– Inside is a merchant and a weapon upgrade location.
– Follow the road northeast to reach Gate Ruins (the small cross on your map).
– Activate a save point just north of it to unlock the leveling system and horse riding.
– Clear the ruins to find a map and an item which unlocks the weapon enchantment system.
– Farm levels/Smith Stones if you want, then rest until nightfall and warp back to the church.
– A new NPC will be there who’ll unlock the spirit summoning system.

Now all the basics are available to explore as you please.