Elden Ring - gamertags on first page

I don't think From are going for realism

It was better with the earlier games. I can imagine some dude rolling out of the way of a big axe coming down on him. But now every boss attack must be followed by several nuclear bombs, and it becomes harder for me to think "doop de doo, let me just roll under that one, doop de doo"

I think you'd probably win a boxing match if you had full plate armour on. Punching that would fucking hurt.

I'm very much a naked-no shield player, normally Dex build. Tried to mix it up a little with this playthrough of Elden Ring and gone for a strength weapon with medium armour and it has mostly been effective, although I'm definitely finding dodging much harder and the final boss is a nightmare (I said I had given up on the game and have so far stuck to my word and haven't been back to it).

The no shield thing is so ingrained in me though that even when I did decide to give it a go against the final boss, I had no idea what I was doing with it. Then I see people on here mentioning upgrading the shield. Upgrading a shield!? I don't think I have done that since that one time in DS1 when I quickly realised it was a waste of resources.

I’m the opposite, I tend to just use whatever works. If a boss is weak to something, I’ll exploit that if I have to. Although I am very attached to the Blasphemous Blade. And definitely a shield bro.

99% of my Elden Ring is not with a shield but with this DLC, there are a few bosses where I've taken the old fingerprint shield out. Seems to be the done thing considering the finger areas. Give it the finger I say.

Noted! I think I only have one larval tear left…

Platinum Trophy completed, just needed the standard ending.

Will probably put the game to bed for now. 560 hours over 3 - 4 characters. Still not done an int or dex build but may come back again another time.

Feeling slightly empty now as it was a great journey, and i didnt kill the last dlc boss.

Really not sure how i would personally rank the From games as there are special things about all of them.

Shield has always been easy mode. Strength builds with high equipment load, Havel armour and shield with a dragons tooth.

Ds1,2 and 3 were always first run that kind of build then tried other things after.

Even blood borne with no shields strength mode was the easiest. Just got the big fuck off sword that I can’t remember the name of.

That's why I still struggled on the first few attempts with the shield--I tried to still dodge some of it, refill stamina etc... until I realised it actually is what I thought couldn't be: just stand there and hold the block button. Never let go, don't do anything else. (Until he gives you a safe opening for a stab, or tries to grab you of course). It was that stupid.

I had 40 stamina which turned out more than enough because stamina loss was so low. I had a +24 Fingerprint Shield which had a guard boost of 83, which I assume means it reduces stamina consumption to 17%. Do make sure to use the double turtle talisman from the DLC for stamina regen, or at least the base turtle talisman from Limgrave but I haven't tried that one here. I was also using the stamina regen physick, that probably helped too.

I was using the "no skill" ash, which allows you to use your weapon's skill even when holding a shield in your left hand, and chose quality affinity. That only changes attack rating (or so I thought) and I wasn't even using a weapon skill, so it was unnecessary but I just did it anyway because I thought why not, might as well.

Just now I checked again and it turns out the affinity actually reduced the guard boost. Leaving it on "standard" gave me 85. I feel stupid now. Well it worked anyway, so whatever. Just well worth knowing that for best guard boost you actually want standard affinity.

You can also use sacred affinity to greatly increase holy damage negation, which is great for this boss. It comes at a cost however, it reduces physical negation to 95%, which is probably not that bad but I believe he deals much more physical than holy damage. More importantly, it significantly reduces guard boost to 77. If this works as I think it does, 23% stamina consumption is a 50% increase to the standard affinity's 15% consumption, so that's pretty substantial.

I just used the highest holy negating talisman and also chose armour with relatively high holy negation. Combined with the shield's regular holy negation his holy damage barely tickled me, so that was more than enough.

I love Sekiro, and the concept of being able to kill an enemy instantly with a deathblow after breaking their posture.

There is a bit of a learning curve but once you get it the combat feels sublime and its so exhilarating facing a boss and getting the deathblows.

Its not a typical Souls game and tries to do its own thing, more action stealth instead of rpg.

Its parry based but the timing is more forgiving, as long as you dont try to spam the parry button as the timing window decreases when you do that, you need to be deliberate in your actions

I’m surprised you beat the final boss of sekiro via spamming block. It can get you a long way doing that but those 4 stages were nails without being able to perfect parry consistently.

The early ending boss is equally as mental so it’s not an easy route to finishing it. Glad I didn’t do the early ending first as that final area is beautiful and a couple of great late bosses people can miss out on.

Nah, you guys just aren't spamming properly!

Just spam it around the time you think you need to get the parry timing correct. I said 50/50 that you get the perfect parry, but actually think it is more like 70/30 in favour of getting the perfect parry. There is still a bit of learning on timing, but doing a spam is much more forgiving.

As for recovery of posture, you only need to spam when you are about to get hit, so still plenty of opportunity to hold it down to recover.

Yes, if you are literally constantly spamming then it will make fights take longer.

As far as I know there was never a patch it's just that the Pro and X versions had an unlocked framerate.