Elden Ring - gamertags on first page

Eh. I went into a cave in last nights play session and ended up on a journey pretending to be Saint George. Nuts.

Beat Gauis last night, after dozens and dozens of attempts. Another boss I absolutely hated. I'm sure I beat him by total luck and I suspect if I were to fight him again I would be likely to barely scratch him a dozen times.

Biggest issue I had was that without the mimic I found him impossible to get any hits on without getting hit back (and losing most, if not all my health) and it was only about 80/20 whether I would be able to get the mimic out and be able to recover. So, most attempts ended within a few seconds. I read that you can get him stick on a pillar to give some time, but that didn't seem to work very consistently and would often leave me fighting him in a corner and causing the camera to be impossible to use.

Also beat Messmer yesterday. Another tough fight, but that one always felt doable and like I was actually making progress when fighting him. Still took me a lot of attempts, but actually felt satisfied beating him, where as Gauis I just felt relief that it was finally over.

Back to exploring and found the way to the south east portion of the map (ok, I looked it up and turns out I missed it - it was actually path I saw and meant to come back to, but forgot about). Stunning looking area.

I was expecting to find gaius worse than I did tbh. I swapped to a faster weapon and stuck to him like glue and a lot of his stuff started missing.

Kinda wonder if it maybe the rare fight summons make tougher as he'll move around more.

I didn't like the forest either. Don't mind a short section like that and the dungeon at the end was good, but the area itself felt like a massive waste of a theme and huge space.

The northeast disappointed me too. Very little there.

I thought Rauh Ruins is one of the best areas in the whole game though, as far as blending the open world and dungeons seamlessly goes that one nailed it

I'll just echo the sentiments of many people here by saying I also have a love/hate relationship with the DLC.

Last night, I managed to take down 3 bosses and all 3 fell down with a sigh of huge relief rather than accomplishment. If JuniorFE had not mentioned the Opaline Bubbletear, I would still be banging my head against those bricked walls repeatedly. Some of the bosses really need to chill the fuck out.

On the other hand, the place looks gorgeous and the sense of exploration really stands out for me. There's always something around the corner or in a nook below to distract you.

Finally, the NPC quests are once again really obscure, as pretty much all previous FROM games. I don't get how people are supposed to follow them without a guide...

Yes, just arrived there and it's terrible: as in, not at all fun. Come on!

Sooooooooooo...

I've just realised you can guard counter whilst holding LB. I thought you had to time the LB button press and THEN counter...

150 hours. Still learning.

I'm not sure that's true at all. With the right hardtear you can do perfect guards which remove the stamina cost of guarding and remove chip damage. But parrying specifically requires a weapon or shield that has a parry weapon skill. But you can't do a parry with just a block input.

Boss went absolutely mental during one of my goes in the second phase. Literally couldn't get out from behind my shield for over a minute.

Weirdly they didn't do it on every try to that extent.

Got the final boss down the "of" in his name full solo. Definitely doable.

Gaius down. Took tiche in but she died two thirds through. I was out of heals due to being sloppy. Needless to say the end of that fight was a bit sphincter tightening.

Take a break and maybe even sleep on it.

I'm stuck on Valiant Gargoyles outside Nokron. Really hate this fight and im only level 60. Beaten then before but hate them.

Typically, i got the first one to one hit left with an ash summon ready to go before the second one got too close.

Then got greedy...

Food consumed, time to tryhard.