this is a post for my friend mortalityplays who is thinking of picking up elden ring and giving it a go. while it’s absolutely one of fromsoft’s most accessible games to just pick up and play (i would argue sekiro might beat it out bc the general mechanics are much simpler), it still has some weird quirks that are going to seem strange and, frankly, stupid to people who are new to them. the game design remains antagonistic toward the player (as it should) and while there’s way less secret mechanics or stats to worry about, there’s still some stuff that’s not immediately intuitive.
i’ll try to organize this in the order in which you might encounter these mechanics or events. but the first and most important rule is this: THERE IS NO SHAME IN LOOKING THINGS UP WHEN STUCK. almost everything in these games was discovered as a means of community collaboration and it is unbelievably unlikely that any one person will find everything on their first go. people found stuff and shared their discoveries with the explicit intent of driving people toward those discoveries, not away. its not bad sportsmanship to look up where the fuck X character is after they’ve wandered off or how to reach a location you can see but can’t access. its fine. no one cares. i certainly don’t.
this is also a lot of info. you can glance over at it as the mechanics are introduced in the game. they actually do a decent job leading you into the “how to play” this time around. this is also a very general overview. im not getting into poise or any of the really secret mechanic shit.
STARTING CLASS:
you are not locked into these stats after a certain point in the game (second mainline boss) so these are only really important at the start. maybe don’t pick the naked weakling on your first play through, but the rest are perfectly viable. well, prophet might give you some grief because it takes a while for FAITH to be useful. maybe not that one either. i enjoyed the confessor and the prisoner classes.
KEEPSAKES:
this is another ultimately inconsequential choice (especially compared to previous games). the rune, bewitching branch, and prawn are pretty worthless. shabriri’s woe is a troll item lol. the medallion isnt useless, but can be purchased very early on for a small fee. the stonesword key, fanged imp ashes, and cracked pot at at least useful and rare. however, especially early on, that golden seed can’t be beat.
MANAGING METERS:
the game revolves around three meters: HP, FP (focus points, your mana), and stamina. HP and FP is recovered through use of items, stamina is recovered by not running, rolling, or swinging your weapon. putting your shield down recovers your stamina much, much faster than keeping it up all the time. put your shield down when you’re not using it!!!!!!!! keeping it raised all the time will never help you.
HP does not have a lot of mystique to it; when it reaches 0 you die. to make it go up, drink red potion. groundbreaking shit.
to make FP go up, use blue potion. however, FP has a lot of utility: it is used for summoning spirits, casting magic, and using “ash of war” attacks. “ash of war” attacks are unique to each weapon and introduce some interesting game play trickery once you find one you really enjoy. this means its always advantageous to have FP on hand, even if you’re not casting spells.
STAMINA:
in general: more heavy=more use of stamina.
I-FRAMES VS BLOCKING:
if an attack is coming at you, you have three choices*:
1. face tank it (don’t do this)
2. block it with your shield. this will take a huge chunk of your stamina, but you can retaliate with a special attack immediately after blocking. with a good shield you will take no damage at all. but if the attack depletes your stamina, you will STAGGER and be locked in place for a few frames.
3. roll out of the way. the heavier your equip load, the worse you will roll. there are four levels of rolling: fast (max i-frames), medium (where i usually am), heavy (really not ideal), and no roll (this is if your equip load is at 100%+. do not do this at all costs).
* there’s a secret 4th option, which is to jump over it. but this is very situational and not a catch-all like these other options.
if you choose to roll, you can roll back, left or right, or, AND THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT, into the attack. it might seem like a terrible idea but “dodging into” an attack is a great way to close the distance and punish an enemy instead of having to play the hokey pokey with them.
get knocked down? roll in a direction immediately to get back up ASAP. getting knocked down is probably the one thing you want to avoid more than anything else in the world. its catastrophic.
PARRYING:
it sucks. in previous games the parry mechanic was essential for game play success. in elden ring they nerfed to it such a degree i never figured out the timing ._. it turns out the “good” version of the parry is stuck in the mid-late game. so either dedicate yourself to learning parry timing through tedious trial and error or give it up, like real heroes (me) do. thankfully this game has many, many other tools for combat.
TWO-HANDING:
if you’re confident and ballsy, you can hold your weapon of choice with two hands for a damage bonus. obviously, this means you can’t use a shield. you can use your weapon as a shield for very weak defense. beats nothing. if you’re going to choose to two-hand a sword, consider very light armor so you can take advantage of i-frames.
dual-wielding:
you can do this! its fun! but watch out! you might regret not having a shield if your weapons are heavy lol.
STRATS FOR STATS:
when you level up, you might be kind of overwhelmed with where to spend the point. while there’s a feature that helpfully breaks down what each stat does in the level up screen, it doesn’t give you any kind of general guidance. here’s a very brief overview of where you might trend toward. each stat has soft caps around level 40; after a certain point (different for each stat) you will receive diminishing returns on investment.
VIGOR: governs your HP and ability to resist certain status effects. this is the first fromsoft game where putting points into vigor is a requirement for most players and not a sign of…..scrub behavior. >:) i have 60 fucking points in vigor in this stupid game to be ready for the final dlc boss. 60! you know what i have in bloodborne? 20-25. you will need vigor. it is probably the single most important stat in the game. prioritize this when you can. like, don’t dump it all into vigor immediately, but its worth investing in early.
FOCUS: governs your FP and ability to resist certain status effects. unless you are going crazy with spells, you probably don’t need too much of this. but its worth it to punch it up a little. i leave mine at 20-25.
ENDURANCE: also governs resistance to some status effects, but its primary purpose is to give you more stamina and more equip load. more stamina = more rolling+more swinging+better ability to hold your shield. higher max equip load=more iframes. this is pretty useful, especially if you find yourself struggling against heavy enemy attacks and prefer to fight up close and personal.
WEAPON SCALING AND DAMAGE TYPES:
every weapon has a scaling rating from E (bad) to S. the scaling is improved when you improve your weapon. but if you really want to take advantage of a weapon’s strength, you will want to boost your stats in accordance to your weapon of choice’s scaling. for example, the weapon im using now starts with scaling in strength (D), dexterity (E) and faith (D) (other stats do not scale this weapon at all). it is better for me to pump points into strength and faith, but a little dex can’t hurt either…at first. after upgrading the weapon to max, the scaling changes to strength (C), dexterity (E), and faith (B). now dex is useless! and faith is way more important!
with that in mind, weapons are usually split between STR and DEX. your attacks are further split into standard, strike (blunt weapons, usually STR), slash (slicing weapons, usually DEX), and pierce (thrusting weapons, also usually DEX). for some reason, a lot of the early game enemies HATE pierce damage, so if you find a pierce type weapon, give it a go.
STRENGTH: influences your physical attack. this is where the true Build building begins. this is my personal go-to when it comes to doing my first run of a game because its the most reliable. but…
DEXTERITY: dex weapons are a lot of fun. dex pairs best with sorcery builds because a high dex also shortens spell casting time. the difference between STR and DEX is the difference between a greatsword and a katana, if that makes sense.
ELEMENTAL DAMAGE AND SPELL CASTING:
to cast spells, you need intelligence (sorceries), faith (incantations), or arcane (???) points. or a combination of any two. much like weapons, spells scale with their associated stat and the object you use to cast them. to cast spells you either need a staff (sorceries) or a seal (incantations) equipped.
INTELLIGENCE: allows you to cast glintstone sorceries. these are easily identified by their green, blue, or purple hue. they are fast and do magic damage. INT also governs magic defense.
FAITH: allows you to cast incantations. these are sometimes defensive spells. they are significantly slower compared to sorceries but they can do fire, holy, or lightning damage. additionally, they can cancel status effects. FAITH DOES NOT COVER HOLY DEFENSE. i am just learning this in real time now with this. this explains a lot of my problems right now lol. hmm.
ARCANE: this is the odd duck out. this governs your ability to apply status effects (sleep, bleed, poison, rot, death, or madness) to enemies more efficiently, your chances for item drops, your holy resistance, and your ability to use dragon/blood incantations. its somewhat useful but i barely touch my arcane stat unless there’s a weird weapon i want to use that requires it.
NOW FOR THE REAL GAME TIPS:
READ THE ITEM DESCRIPTIONS!: there’s more than just cryptic lore ramblings in there! item descriptions will tell you if spells or certain attacks can be charged or used differently than expected. it is always worth it to read the item descriptions.
HOWEVER…: sometimes the item descriptions….don’t mention things. >:) on purpose!
A NOTE ABOUT BOWS: despite creating 239385672379856 different arrows for you to make and having many, many, bows in the game, i’ve found them to be universally useless. just cast spells instead. bow builds are, sadly, not viable for anything but the most hard core players.
DON’T BE DETERRED: if an encounter seems too hard, leave it and come back later. your first (real) optional boss in the entire game is like 20 feet away from the tomb you exit from and he’ll probably launch you straight into space in one hit. don’t torture yourself trying to take him down. come back later. your first real bottleneck of the game is probably margit, the fell omen. the good news is: if you can’t beat him, there’s 3 entire areas to explore (limgrave, the weeping peninsula, and liurnia) to explore. so go do that.
HIT THE BRICKS: sometimes the best strategy is just to leave. if the heat is on, jump on torrent and get the hell out of there.
NPCS: unless they are actively attacking and trying to kill you, don’t kill them! if an NPC begs you to stop hitting them, you can stop hitting them. this sounds oddly specific, but it’ll make sense. at the very end of the game, you can run around killing all the npcs for their swag, but during the actual progression of the game, you’ll want them around. elden ring has some of the nicest npcs of any fromsoft game lol. rare!
TALK!: exhaust npc dialog. keep talking to them until they loop. this is important.
BOSS GATES: golden fog in a doorway=boss encounter. be ready.
SUMMON SIGNS: i play offline so i only see the npc ones, but sometimes you will come across a glowing strip of white, strange text on the ground in front of a boss gate. these are summon signs. feel free to summon for help if you really need it. it’s what the system is for! there are other types of summon signs with different colors that do different things, but ill leave you to the game’s explanation of PVP if you even want to get into that.
THINGS HAPPEN AT NIGHT: sometimes, new bosses appear at night. so watch out!
MYSTERIOUS GLOWING LEAVES/EYES: sometimes, at night, glowing, golden particles will swirl around like pollen in the air. when this is active, you get bonus runes (EXP) from enemies. additionally, some enemies have glowing gold eyes, indicating that they will drop more runes than usual.
MAPS!: if you see this on a part of the map you haven’t explored yet
there’s a map there! head there first.
SAY YES!: there’s basically no reason to turn down an NPC request. be spicy and lend a hand. they might be tricking you, but so what? you can beat their ass later.
POISON SWAMPS: torrent isn’t affected by poison. if you can ride him through an area that’s rotted or poisoned, it’s probably best to do so.
ENTERING ROOMS: you’ll thank me for this later. before entering a room, creep your camera around the corners and check for any lurking goons waiting to attack you from your blind spot. fromsoft loves this shit.
FIRST THINGS FIRST: after exiting the tutorial tomb, your first order of business is to go to the church directly in front of you and talk to the merchant there. he has something you need badly.
POINTS OF NO RETURN: if you set fire to trees, it is very likely that the world state will drastically change. it is worth putting it off until you complete every quest you can before proceeding.
IS THE DLC WORTH IT?: the final boss is literally one of the worst they’ve ever had when it comes to actually playing the game imo. but outside of that, its a pretty solid experience.
now, go forth! and brandish the elden ring!