My first play through of Elden Ring was a pseudo challenge run - capped at 125RL (pvp meta) and dual UGS style. No ash of war usage. No guides for bosses.

Malenia took me over a month, and probably over 500 deaths and I had to relax the ash of war usage (still limited by my very low FP)

The entire end game was brutal as this was before the buff for UGS animation speeds and most boss openings were shorter than anything than a crouch poke but I loved every minute of it. Just like learning to play something new on an instrument just cos you can't nail it in one try, one week or even one month doesn't mean you won't eventually get it.

One meta lesson I like about Souls is it provides a safe environment to learn what performing under pressure is like. The music and feints are absolutely diabolical for playing with your emotions and heightening your stress. I always play better on mute (but that's no fun)

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Sohcahtoa82 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

I somehow missed Malenia. I'm level 125 (not doing the PVP meta, just happen to be this level) and was pounding my face against Radagon and the Elden Beast. I downed Radagon on my first attempt, then after like 10 more tries couldn't get him again.

I avoided reading the Elden Ring wiki as much as possible. I decided to open it up and found how to get to Malenia, so I'll be fighting my way over there and gaining a few more levels before trying Radagon and Elden Beast again.

> The music and feints are absolutely diabolical for playing with your emotions and heightening your stress.

The feints are what really get me. Some of the wind-ups for attacks feel like an eternity, or at the very least, extremely unnatural, making it very hard to time a dodge.

	▲	djtango 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		I recently learned that Margit has a "feint" that is actually a stance - that's why his wind up feels like it takes forever. I was interested to find out that Margit is one of the most technically fun and difficult fights to nohit run because his flow chart is actually the most complex of all the bosses. But most players can brute force their way through him. Malenia was a lot of fun, especially without summons

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Muromec 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

>One meta lesson I like about Souls is it provides a safe environment to learn what performing under pressure is like

They used to give you unlimited time to deal with difficulty and always gave the alternative of rolling back and getting more levels. That's until Nightreign -- you are almost always under time pressure.

Forget Malenia -- everdark Libra is the current standard of the most diabolical Souls experience. The time is against you, the music is maddening. You either clear the summons in under 20 seconds or you get another stacked debuff and the goat is casting.

Can't wait for the Depth version to be released this Thursday.

	▲	djtango 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		Still not tried Nightreign - might have to take a look!