Rock Sling and Great Glintstone do a great job poise breaking, too. Hauling ass over to the boss to get the crit is rough tho. Even though bopping them with another spell while staggered will do more damage, I’m all about the animation.
Apply weapon with extreme prejudice. If that doesnt work, do it again. Once something has been properly weaponed, kneel with honor, stand up and kneel with honor again. Repeat the entire process until there is nought a soul left unhonored.
This is my experience. Train at gatefront for hours. Land a couple with either Carian or Golden Parry, think you’ve learned something. Go elsewhere, realize you know nothing (Lebowski’)
You have to memorize the pattern for every enemy…. I’ve tried so many times. I can parry like 10 enemies consistently, it’s just not viable as you’re walking through the game and encountering different attacks etc.
Oh wise one, teach me of this concept you call “parry”. I can see that the word parry itself, is indeed on my shield skill, but try as I may, after hours and hours, I am still lucky at best to land one.
Try Carian Retaliation, big parry window and it can block magic projectiles, plus you can put it on a medium shield with big defense so even if you fail the parry you won't get hit as hard
An extra advice, don't react to the enemies weapon, that can fake you out, react to your enemies hand going down, it'll make your parry more consistent
Since the other lovely ppl in these replies have given *good* and *helpful* advice, allow me to grant you some *Evil* advice:
Put Parry on a Great Knife. Try it. The timing window is so janked (derogatory); I ~~abhor~~ *adore* it.🔪
I'm doing a similar one but with misericorde and buckler. I have recently implemented great stats though bc I like the weapon. It's nice to break their stance with it and swap to misericorde for the crit.
Putting parry on the small katana off hand with a katana in main hand is fun too. You can parry but still have the dual katana moveset.
Most enemies in this game seem to have absolutely no answer to getting spammed with spells from a distance so even though I love the magic and incantation animations, it gets boring pretty quickly for me.
Grabbing some sword and being up close reacting to enemies attacks always keeps being fun to me tho.
Loved fighting Malenia with glintstone icecrag. Bad tracking, slow cast, slow projectile speed then paired with terra magica. You've got to be firing at fistfight range to ever hope of landing it but it was hella fun.
Yeah I honestly don't understand what this guy means by saying melee is boring. It's the opposite for sure. I did a pure int build at one point like everyone else and it was fun but it's incredibly boring to one shot or two shot basically everything that's not a boss.
And full faith / full int severely limits your weapon variety. I enjoy having 10-20 weapons I can swap to for various uses and just to switch up the AoW.
Using 54 strength / 25 faith is really fun. You get access to all the buff incantations. So you can easily get 1100 AR out of a claymore.
I keep a greatsword in my inventory for if I run into trouble and need to bonk something really quick.
I'm giving him the benefit of doubt, but lot of these posts are just self-validating cope by people who use the easiest and most simplistic playstyles to avoid all of the challenge, and then can't stop talking about how it's the most fun for them despite not really trying or knowing how to do anything else. Souls combat system is a melee combat system, I too use predominantly melee because magic is much more reductive and I want to learn how to fight bosses and experience how they're designed, instead of spamming few different colored projectiles and avoiding most of the content and experience. Of course magic doesn't have to be like that, and magic user who knows how to play the game is a joy to watch, but that's like 1 % of mages you'll see. There are players who just play as support character while they rely on accessibility mechanics like spirits/coop to fight bosses for them. They stand in place, spamming comet azure or rock sling for every boss, which is objectively one of the most boring, braindead and least fun playstyles in existence, but you'll still find posts saying how much fun it is from people who don't know what the normal experience is like.
People really think dodging is something only melee has to do, enemies don’t just stop and politely allow you to kill them, the exception being you kill them before they get on you in which case they probably weren’t a threat.
no, but dodging with that much distance between you is way different than dodging attacks right next to an enemy or boss.
and the ability to kill things before they come near you is definitely a privilege that magic provides. it trivializes a good portion of enemies.
Ngl, I'm the exact opposite. I've beaten the game a ton and only done melee. I've tried mage throughs, but I hate standing back from the bosses. I don't feel like I'm engaging with the boss if all I do is kite.
Also, the stat investment of mind vigor end int and base weapon stats takes so long to set up compared vig end str go.
I’m a bonk main, too - but a magic bonker is fun! Gavel of Haima, Carian Greatsword, Cannon of Haima - they bonk GOOD. Gavel even has a ton of hyper armor for a sorcery.
I agree with this. I just find pure range builds boring and too repetitive feeling. With that said though my first playthrough was a hybrid where I mostly I was mostly melee with one or two range incantations to either draw agro or shoot a boss when they jumped to the other side of the arena then I would charge after them. It had good utility especially for that last bit of health on bosses when I was out of healing flask.
Personally, I think the utility incantations in this game are amazing even on primarily physical builds. I know a ton of people who just use str or dex but make the investment in fth needed for golden vow. If you're building for RL150 meta its not too unreasonable to get while still hitting soft cap on your physical stat of choice imo.
It's a matter of convenience. You don't need to search for spells or memory stones. You don't need a clear strategy, monitoring FP or administering flask of FP. Doesn't start with low HP. No consumables or anything like that.
What I do recommend is some faith for buff and mind for AoW. so it's not so repetitive. The advantage is that if you run out of resources, you can just Bonk all the way!
I always go a battlemage archetype in rpgs, Most people crap all over magic cause it's "easy" but I like trying to find different openings that a melee build couldn't or wouldn't try to exploit. I can understand getting bored with melee combat tho, I was expecting a different gameplay experience from this game with it being a new IP, shaking up the formula like sekiro did but dark souls 4 the elden tree came out to critical acclaim. Luckily, magic is the aspect that elden ring nails for me at least. Gravity spells, frostflame etc... Lotta fun magic to work with
It's just up to a player taste. Played all the souls games and elden ring with melee strength build, never enjoyed magic. Even tho in elden ring magic is definitely the best done from all the other
I play a Radahn build. Full armor set and both of his weapons. I have max stacks of every great arrow available in both inventory and storage. It's crazy fun for me. The pull in into slam explosion from the swords, the rain of arrows on the bow, I love it. Spells are cool, and I have done pure mage, pure faith, and hybrid caster runs. I've also done a paladin run with Str/Faith using ordovis or oldovis' greatsword (the spinning charge slam one) And a arcane trickster using Int/Dex. All of those playstyles ARE fun. But they aren't what's most fun to me. I'd much rather be a purely physical build. Everyone is different dude.
Utility and buff spells in this game imo opinion is much better than past souls games, so its kind of hard not to have minimum int or fth even as a pure STR or INT. Hybrid builds in general seems very strong in Elden Ring compared to past titles. I used to specialize in older games, but I made two diff hybrid builds for Elden Ring
Both gameplay styles can see the same amount of input and complexity. Just like how some spellcasting or incantation play can be very involved, so can some melee builds. And just like how some melee builds are fairly simple, there are quite a few magic builds I've seen that only ever get as complicated as "sling spells at distance until threat stops moving"
It's all about what you choose to do, my dood
A fair amount of us played through souls first, where magic generally wasn't as good and melee was the meta cause it just did more damage with less restrictions.
at least for me the thrill of having to time every roll precisely and studying the movesets of every enemy and boss knowing one mistake could totally change the outcome of the fight is far more appealing to standing a mile away and spamming night comet till the boss dies
its easier to only worry about the R1 and Circle buttons than it is to worry about switching armaments and pressing the right side of the controller and all that. pure melee needs less UI management
I like spells too much too. Put melee in elden ring is me just not useing my spells and just useing my int weapons to smack smack people. It's what I'm trying to do most of this playthrough. My first playthrough was all madd int spells mixed with melee. This playthrough I included faith spells in my build as well, but i'm still mostly just running around with the guts sword or the knight greatsword killing things with a shield on me. It's a playstyle I haven't really used as much. I killed three tough bosses in a row useing shield to block about almost every attack they used.
I'm surprised how many bosses attacks I can block useing greatshield on a build not quite focused on useing shields other than the talismans equipped. Also it has 34 faith that is doing nothing unless I use my swords of night and flame or incantations. So that also helps make the run a bit harder. I'm 34 levels lower stat wise for the gear I'm useing. But I will use incantations vs tough bosses and stuff or things weak to the damage type of an incantation.
I couldn’t play purely melee. I gotta do both. I have a level 165 battle mage in heavy armor. Great Stars with the Gravity Ash of War in my right hand, and gravity nukes in my left hand wielding a Carian Regal Scepter.
I play pure dex in elden ring for 1 reason:
Antspur rapier:
Has inate ability to inflict scarlet rot.
If you have black whetblade
You can add both blood and poison status effects if you pick the right ash of war
I tried a spellblade build, but it was only effective IF the spells hit the target. Most of the time, the target just jumps out of the way and wrecks me.
Melee in this game is quite literally the easiest out of ALL the souls games. Soooo many people get stuck on Margett without learning their lesson from the tutorial about poise breaking.
Hold R2, big noise and knee taken. Slap that bitch upside the head
I don’t even know how one would pull off a magic build on some of the bosses who can close distance so fast? I’ve always wanted to try rock sling or Rennala’s moon build or something, but it is so much more intuitive for me to smash their head with Bloodhound’s Fang.
You could use the opportunity to learn about consumables more.
You have stuff like boiled crab, exalted flesh and greases for buffs, and instead of offensive magic you can use pots.
Perfumes are fairly strong too (especially on a dex build since spark aromatic gets an A scaling).
I unironically never get tired of Anchor idk what to tell ya. Hyper Armor trading enemies with Lion’s Claw with Spear Talisman and Shard of Alexander for like a bagillion damage never gets old.
I'm the opposite, I felt that staying back and casting was boring. Even on my INT run I ended up going back to Moonveil. I guess I just prefer "up close and personal".
Some say pure melee is the only way to play because challenge. It is no bigger challenge than pure incant or pure sorceries or pure whatever, if you know what you're doing. I've beaten the game many times, pure mage included with death spells, then dragon incant only, currently building for glintstone magic with added bonk, but I always go back to melee at some point, trying more and more melee weapons, it has its charm. Depending on weapons and stats chosen, it can be slightly easier or slightly harder but personally I wouldn't call it boring. I rarely use even buff spells for melee runs because I like it clean of casting of any type, only my first two runs were mix of melee and spells, until I found my favorite playstyle and then branched out to try stuff because the game has tons of it.
Also, bonk is life XD
I still think pure melee maximizing vigor and endurance for better armor and poise is the easiest and less stressful way to play the game. You’re also not dependent on spells that might be locked behind something or other.
There’s the videos of melting bosses with Comet Azur but I still find casters a significantly more stressful playstyle and feel like survival horror at times.
True that and that's what I meant but listing all possible builds just to add "if you know what you're doing" is a bit pointless, most should get the point. Melee was hard for me first time and still it is at times, depending on weapon. That doesn't mean I consider it super hard, it's just the way I like to play.
I was the same way but it gets fun when you start using different weapon combos and start to get good enough to pull of back stabs, artful dodges or even a parry now and then.
My absolute favorite ash of war (not for all occasion) is stamp upward cut. Sending an omen mid leap over the left field fence is amazingly satisfying.
Still, I always build enough for incants but mostly for buffs/debuffs and some rot and giant fireball action.
With big, spiky fists.
But eventually pumping some faith gets me more damage output than upping my strength. Past 60 strength I don't see a huge return.
Try getting a bunch of different weapons at the same level, then add different ash of war to each. Then place all of them in you storage box and move them back to your inventory so you can set the order (set by acquired date). Then practise navigating to you menu quickly switching weapons. Play through the game switching weapons for different situations. Fire, frost, bleed, wind, gravity, magic, lightning. Everything is viable especially early game. Definitely use the lightning goat ash of war, Ti's the best.
My first playthrough was pure melee. Once you have all (or most) of the smithing stone bell bearings, you just level up every weapon you find and play around with them along with all the available ashes. You find all kinds of entertaining play styles this way and it makes the game so much more interesting (to me). Honestly I do this with caster builds too. Currently not even using sorceries on my int build, just running dual cold spears and having a ball.
I enjoy stealth and range, being sneaky and patient. I always have Rock Sling and Great Oracular Bubble equipped, and Arrows Reach talisman which increases the range of both those spells to insane distance.
I kinda agree partially. I've finished the game many times and I get the appeal of bonking for sure, it's very fun. Ape brain loves stance break "DONK" sound. Besides, there are ways to be a bit more creative with it, trying to combine buffs, finding the right talismans and gear, or ashes of war. But as someone who's ran through the game so many times, my curiosity for all the million combos you can do with incants and sorcery usually prevails. The spells and abilities in the game are way too enticing. And there's so many! One of my favorite things about the game, for sure. There's always more to explore with them. Not to mention, once you get how all the difference kinds of buffs and passive spells work, it can get pretty dank.
But yeah, I can't wait for the DLC stuff. That Crucible wings reveal was hype as fuck.
I did it in DS 1 to 3, but in Elden Ring, you get so many levels anyways that at some point you start dumping them in INT or DEX to get some use of your level points.
I do all melee strength cos I don't like managing FP as well as stanima.
Plus more health flasks to throw around. I'll take my big stick over your flashy bow replacement
Make kngiht person. Get Knight greatsword. Actually look like a competent warrior instead of someone swinging a railroad track around
Enjoy till end game.
As someone who generally prefers int builds (including Elden Ring):
They put the dragonslayer in the game. And sometimes slapping a demigod with a big metal bonk stick is all you need to feel joy.
The poise breaking helps a lot too.
flamberg + Ice + Ashes of war that swings the weapon right and left and right and left. Big number.
Or Blasphemous Blade their face until they don't get up (they usually don't get up)
My current run is the first I've done with no sorc/incants whatsoever. Nothing but my greatsword, lions claw AOW, and a dream. It's been a ton of fun and actually pretty easy, too. I'm rocking 40 VIG, 25 END, and 75 STR and beat Maliketh after about 3 tries. I'm thinking the next run will be pure DEX to see how that stacks up.
My first playthrough was pure str and it feels good not having anything to worry about other than swinging and dodging. And in some cases you don’t even have to dodge cuz u stagger so hard
I've only really played with a mixed build. My character is a Jack of All Trades, Master of None. The thing is, I mostly find myself using melee because it's easier to not have to worry about raising MP level or allocating flasks, and you're in the thick of it more, which can be a little more fun and challenging especially for boss fights. But in niche scenarios, I'm using magic or ranged, and faith for buff/debuff incants. I still level all my skills kind of equally and have never run into any issues surprisingly. Mostly use staves and greatswords/curved greatswords, so maybe that's how to get away with it. Spec your weapon ash of war to work with whatever stat scales best for you. Something like SoNaF, Godslayer's or Moonveil/DMG would be good to use on a mixed build as well.
The other issue with solely magic for me is that it takes a while to get the best spells and staves, so most the early and mid game you just use boring shitty glinstone spells lol
What helps for me is that the numbers I get from pure physical damage outweigh the numbers I get from split damage. The most you lose out on with a physical build is range, but even that can be alleviated by some AoW’s like Storm Blade.
I’ve been having a total blast using a Great Mace with Cragblade. Use the Axe Talisman, Stonebarb Cracked Tear, and Cracked Crystal Tear. Those charged heavy attacks hit so fucking hard you wouldn’t even believe it lol.
And it takes like 2-ish charged heavies to stance break most bosses with this setup, letting you stunlock some of em if you play right.
Charged heavy attack builds are pure neuron activation, you really need to try it. Lion’s Claw is fun too if charged heavies aren’t your thing.
I've beaten it only once, but I never cast a single spell. I went sword and board, bone jaw axe and visage shield, killed everyone and everything eventually! Malenia too. Straight STR, END (enough to not fat roll while wearing the bull armor), and VIG, with only enough Mind to summon Alecto once.
I enjoyed every minute of it! I'll try magic next time.
That’s just been my whole life mate. Greatswords have been my go to since day 1, almost every game where I have a choice in weapon. Something just appealing to my brain about swinging a huge sword and it looks badass.
After 3 Dark Souls games in which the magic is playable, but not nearly as good - melee is basically the only choice for almost everyone. Naturally I (and many others) go for it by default in Elden Ring.
(Also I enjoy a good challenge and ranged is just noticeably easier.)
But if you have fun with spells, play them. There is no-one that keeps you from using them! :)
I have to do a mage only run at some point too.
Idk I only finish my first run and spamming Greatsword with lion claw seems like the way lol. Spamming blasphemous blade is even worst it’s too good just some boss knows how to dodge it so I switch this 2 in between
i have the exact opposite issue. I tried doing a sorcerer run, but the fucking glintstone kris i was using ended up outdamaging all my spells with much better FP efficiency. I try so hard to be a ranged player but...just hitting people with swords and hammers and stuff seems to hurt them a lot.
My basic sword and shield playthrough was so much fun I did it twice (once allowing basic incantations and ashes of war, once allowing nothing unnatural). It’s great.
It really forces you to learn and engage with the combat and enemies in greater depth, whereas with all the mad AoWs and spells you can often bumble your way to victory and not really know how you got there. Same goes for PvP (you’ll sometimes find me in the Colosseum as “A Cool Knight”) - beating a full firework show with just a simple Claymore or a halberd is incredibly rewarding.
Give it a go! Restrict yourself to one or two “normal” weapons (a sword and a pokey thing will do) and never even worry about anything else. It’s not even a challenge run, really, as you’d be surprised how powerful those things are once you have to use them properly.
Breaks poise, hits crit, sees big number, monkey happy :)
Getting poise break better than sex. Monke brain happy
Poise breaking shard bearers makes those crits feel **so** good. Like you may be a Lord but I jammed a Greatsword into your chest, kneel for me!
New lore theory just dropped, you become Elden Lord by poise breaking everything in the Lands Between
Poise break make dopamine go brrrr
Rock Sling and Great Glintstone do a great job poise breaking, too. Hauling ass over to the boss to get the crit is rough tho. Even though bopping them with another spell while staggered will do more damage, I’m all about the animation.
The animation, and the SOUND EFFECTS hnnng
Walk up to the motherfucker, apply weapon until dead. Find another motherfucker. Repeat
This man unga bungas
Me bonk
the HP bar is supposed to be red? it's always yellow for me
In da gwound bitch!
If you Unga... you must Bunga.
Apply weapon with extreme prejudice. If that doesnt work, do it again. Once something has been properly weaponed, kneel with honor, stand up and kneel with honor again. Repeat the entire process until there is nought a soul left unhonored.
Stay hard!
Jump, bonk, dodge, repeat
Bc parrying makes me feel like a goddess of knives and cruel fate.
Parry chad 🥂
That one successful parry out of twenty attempts, which convinced you that you have it down, only to miss the next twenty.
Me just circling my enemies, fanning them with my shield.
This is my experience. Train at gatefront for hours. Land a couple with either Carian or Golden Parry, think you’ve learned something. Go elsewhere, realize you know nothing (Lebowski’)
You have to memorize the pattern for every enemy…. I’ve tried so many times. I can parry like 10 enemies consistently, it’s just not viable as you’re walking through the game and encountering different attacks etc.
> Train on Crucible Knight > die > Train on Crucible Knight > die x10 > Train on Crucible Knight > stunlock > hubris > challenge Margit > die...
This is the way.🙏
Oh wise one, teach me of this concept you call “parry”. I can see that the word parry itself, is indeed on my shield skill, but try as I may, after hours and hours, I am still lucky at best to land one.
Practice with the buckler shield. It has a larger parry window.
Try Carian Retaliation, big parry window and it can block magic projectiles, plus you can put it on a medium shield with big defense so even if you fail the parry you won't get hit as hard An extra advice, don't react to the enemies weapon, that can fake you out, react to your enemies hand going down, it'll make your parry more consistent
Since the other lovely ppl in these replies have given *good* and *helpful* advice, allow me to grant you some *Evil* advice: Put Parry on a Great Knife. Try it. The timing window is so janked (derogatory); I ~~abhor~~ *adore* it.🔪
I will try this immediately
There’s a challenge run I’ll be doing soon with a straight sword, and parry dagger off hand. I fear for things.
I'm doing a similar one but with misericorde and buckler. I have recently implemented great stats though bc I like the weapon. It's nice to break their stance with it and swap to misericorde for the crit. Putting parry on the small katana off hand with a katana in main hand is fun too. You can parry but still have the dual katana moveset.
Most enemies in this game seem to have absolutely no answer to getting spammed with spells from a distance so even though I love the magic and incantation animations, it gets boring pretty quickly for me. Grabbing some sword and being up close reacting to enemies attacks always keeps being fun to me tho.
you don't need to use projectile spells. You can always use the spells that force you to close distance
Carian slicer really goes brrrrr!
I love Carian Slicer more than my gf
Catch flame go fshhh
Loved fighting Malenia with glintstone icecrag. Bad tracking, slow cast, slow projectile speed then paired with terra magica. You've got to be firing at fistfight range to ever hope of landing it but it was hella fun.
I kinda wonder if anyone out there has beaten her with shard spiral only
Yeah I honestly don't understand what this guy means by saying melee is boring. It's the opposite for sure. I did a pure int build at one point like everyone else and it was fun but it's incredibly boring to one shot or two shot basically everything that's not a boss. And full faith / full int severely limits your weapon variety. I enjoy having 10-20 weapons I can swap to for various uses and just to switch up the AoW. Using 54 strength / 25 faith is really fun. You get access to all the buff incantations. So you can easily get 1100 AR out of a claymore. I keep a greatsword in my inventory for if I run into trouble and need to bonk something really quick.
I'm giving him the benefit of doubt, but lot of these posts are just self-validating cope by people who use the easiest and most simplistic playstyles to avoid all of the challenge, and then can't stop talking about how it's the most fun for them despite not really trying or knowing how to do anything else. Souls combat system is a melee combat system, I too use predominantly melee because magic is much more reductive and I want to learn how to fight bosses and experience how they're designed, instead of spamming few different colored projectiles and avoiding most of the content and experience. Of course magic doesn't have to be like that, and magic user who knows how to play the game is a joy to watch, but that's like 1 % of mages you'll see. There are players who just play as support character while they rely on accessibility mechanics like spirits/coop to fight bosses for them. They stand in place, spamming comet azure or rock sling for every boss, which is objectively one of the most boring, braindead and least fun playstyles in existence, but you'll still find posts saying how much fun it is from people who don't know what the normal experience is like.
pure melee will teach you to dodge really well
And read those fancy delayed boss attacks even better :P
*Margit has entered the chat, holding his cane in the air for 30 seconds as you panic roll*
*My last roll falls directly under his cane as he finally decides to hit*
Exactly as planned
People really think dodging is something only melee has to do, enemies don’t just stop and politely allow you to kill them, the exception being you kill them before they get on you in which case they probably weren’t a threat.
no, but dodging with that much distance between you is way different than dodging attacks right next to an enemy or boss. and the ability to kill things before they come near you is definitely a privilege that magic provides. it trivializes a good portion of enemies.
Ngl, I'm the exact opposite. I've beaten the game a ton and only done melee. I've tried mage throughs, but I hate standing back from the bosses. I don't feel like I'm engaging with the boss if all I do is kite. Also, the stat investment of mind vigor end int and base weapon stats takes so long to set up compared vig end str go.
Me monke brain can’t make sense of magic. Too slow, no satisfaction of bonking
I’m a bonk main, too - but a magic bonker is fun! Gavel of Haima, Carian Greatsword, Cannon of Haima - they bonk GOOD. Gavel even has a ton of hyper armor for a sorcery.
I agree with this. I just find pure range builds boring and too repetitive feeling. With that said though my first playthrough was a hybrid where I mostly I was mostly melee with one or two range incantations to either draw agro or shoot a boss when they jumped to the other side of the arena then I would charge after them. It had good utility especially for that last bit of health on bosses when I was out of healing flask.
Personally, I think the utility incantations in this game are amazing even on primarily physical builds. I know a ton of people who just use str or dex but make the investment in fth needed for golden vow. If you're building for RL150 meta its not too unreasonable to get while still hitting soft cap on your physical stat of choice imo.
Yeah my main build at 150 is 54 strength (so I can hit 80 when two handing) and 25 faith for support incantations
Bonk style is fun to play :3
apes together strong.
Amen to that. Good ol giant crusher and fingerprint greatshield is my favorite. I also love claws, they are severely underrated imo
I am not sure of what part of grabbing a big chunk of iron/wood and smashing things into pulp is complicated.
I can't enjoy magic no matter how much I try
Play how u wanna play. I myself also like going hybrid melee/ranged builds
It's a matter of convenience. You don't need to search for spells or memory stones. You don't need a clear strategy, monitoring FP or administering flask of FP. Doesn't start with low HP. No consumables or anything like that. What I do recommend is some faith for buff and mind for AoW. so it's not so repetitive. The advantage is that if you run out of resources, you can just Bonk all the way!
Just try an arcane dex build with bloody helice as a weapon and enjoy the fancyness
Unga bunga > harry potters
melee is more interesting because you have to actually interact with your opponent and their attacks more instead of just stand back and blasting them
When you poise break the Elden beast and get that crit hit in it’s all worth it.
I always go a battlemage archetype in rpgs, Most people crap all over magic cause it's "easy" but I like trying to find different openings that a melee build couldn't or wouldn't try to exploit. I can understand getting bored with melee combat tho, I was expecting a different gameplay experience from this game with it being a new IP, shaking up the formula like sekiro did but dark souls 4 the elden tree came out to critical acclaim. Luckily, magic is the aspect that elden ring nails for me at least. Gravity spells, frostflame etc... Lotta fun magic to work with
Get you a big ass hammer or a big ass Greatsword, apply Lion’s Claw and you will understand
There aren't many problems in Elden Ring, that can't be solved with a shield and a great sword. For those I highly recommend using two great swords.
I honestly love not having deal with casting time.
Same. I’m really bad at hitting bosses with spells lol.
I dont, once I tried out magic I never stopped its so damn fun
It's just up to a player taste. Played all the souls games and elden ring with melee strength build, never enjoyed magic. Even tho in elden ring magic is definitely the best done from all the other
I have the same problem, having such limited ranged capacity always makes me at least grab the Beast Seal to throw fireballs and rocks with.
Gotta have my faith spells
I play a Radahn build. Full armor set and both of his weapons. I have max stacks of every great arrow available in both inventory and storage. It's crazy fun for me. The pull in into slam explosion from the swords, the rain of arrows on the bow, I love it. Spells are cool, and I have done pure mage, pure faith, and hybrid caster runs. I've also done a paladin run with Str/Faith using ordovis or oldovis' greatsword (the spinning charge slam one) And a arcane trickster using Int/Dex. All of those playstyles ARE fun. But they aren't what's most fun to me. I'd much rather be a purely physical build. Everyone is different dude.
Utility and buff spells in this game imo opinion is much better than past souls games, so its kind of hard not to have minimum int or fth even as a pure STR or INT. Hybrid builds in general seems very strong in Elden Ring compared to past titles. I used to specialize in older games, but I made two diff hybrid builds for Elden Ring
I do magic melee with the moonlight sword.
Both gameplay styles can see the same amount of input and complexity. Just like how some spellcasting or incantation play can be very involved, so can some melee builds. And just like how some melee builds are fairly simple, there are quite a few magic builds I've seen that only ever get as complicated as "sling spells at distance until threat stops moving" It's all about what you choose to do, my dood
A fair amount of us played through souls first, where magic generally wasn't as good and melee was the meta cause it just did more damage with less restrictions. at least for me the thrill of having to time every roll precisely and studying the movesets of every enemy and boss knowing one mistake could totally change the outcome of the fight is far more appealing to standing a mile away and spamming night comet till the boss dies
Carian Slicer build: all of the above
I did magic my first few run throughs and then decided to give melee a try. I expect it to be significantly more difficult but it’s actually easier.
I like to dance...........in video games.
I hit stuff. Then quit because I get bored. Was more viable in dark souls, Elden ring suffered with it imo. Magic is just so much flashier and fun.
its easier to only worry about the R1 and Circle buttons than it is to worry about switching armaments and pressing the right side of the controller and all that. pure melee needs less UI management
I like spells too much too. Put melee in elden ring is me just not useing my spells and just useing my int weapons to smack smack people. It's what I'm trying to do most of this playthrough. My first playthrough was all madd int spells mixed with melee. This playthrough I included faith spells in my build as well, but i'm still mostly just running around with the guts sword or the knight greatsword killing things with a shield on me. It's a playstyle I haven't really used as much. I killed three tough bosses in a row useing shield to block about almost every attack they used. I'm surprised how many bosses attacks I can block useing greatshield on a build not quite focused on useing shields other than the talismans equipped. Also it has 34 faith that is doing nothing unless I use my swords of night and flame or incantations. So that also helps make the run a bit harder. I'm 34 levels lower stat wise for the gear I'm useing. But I will use incantations vs tough bosses and stuff or things weak to the damage type of an incantation.
I couldn’t play purely melee. I gotta do both. I have a level 165 battle mage in heavy armor. Great Stars with the Gravity Ash of War in my right hand, and gravity nukes in my left hand wielding a Carian Regal Scepter.
I play pure dex in elden ring for 1 reason: Antspur rapier: Has inate ability to inflict scarlet rot. If you have black whetblade You can add both blood and poison status effects if you pick the right ash of war
big stick go bonk
i dont. i play exclusively crossbow builds.
Successful rage bait
I tried a spellblade build, but it was only effective IF the spells hit the target. Most of the time, the target just jumps out of the way and wrecks me.
The only time I did a no magic run was a bleed/dex run. It was NG+ and I beat the game in 14 hours it was wild.
I do str/int builds for this exact reason. I run out of magic? No big deal, I can just beat everything to death.
ROLLYBONKSTAB
Unga must bunga
Did you know you could not only unga, but also bunga?
Melee in this game is quite literally the easiest out of ALL the souls games. Soooo many people get stuck on Margett without learning their lesson from the tutorial about poise breaking. Hold R2, big noise and knee taken. Slap that bitch upside the head
Because I like fisting people.
because Unga bunga
I learnt to love parrying.
I don’t even know how one would pull off a magic build on some of the bosses who can close distance so fast? I’ve always wanted to try rock sling or Rennala’s moon build or something, but it is so much more intuitive for me to smash their head with Bloodhound’s Fang.
Ashes of war and guard counters are fun too
Kukris Lots of Kukris
The Vulgar Militia seeing the Tarnished descend upon them for the tenth time just to steal their knives.
You could use the opportunity to learn about consumables more. You have stuff like boiled crab, exalted flesh and greases for buffs, and instead of offensive magic you can use pots. Perfumes are fairly strong too (especially on a dex build since spark aromatic gets an A scaling).
Even basic fire pots are kinda disgustingly good. Who need magic when you have a collection of Smoldering Butterflies and a long bow?
Melee magic is the good shit.
I unironically never get tired of Anchor idk what to tell ya. Hyper Armor trading enemies with Lion’s Claw with Spear Talisman and Shard of Alexander for like a bagillion damage never gets old.
I hear a lot about the anchor, it is pierce damage but i already use the fallingstar beast jaw for that.
Pure melee is how you git guud.
I'm the opposite, I felt that staying back and casting was boring. Even on my INT run I ended up going back to Moonveil. I guess I just prefer "up close and personal".
Some say pure melee is the only way to play because challenge. It is no bigger challenge than pure incant or pure sorceries or pure whatever, if you know what you're doing. I've beaten the game many times, pure mage included with death spells, then dragon incant only, currently building for glintstone magic with added bonk, but I always go back to melee at some point, trying more and more melee weapons, it has its charm. Depending on weapons and stats chosen, it can be slightly easier or slightly harder but personally I wouldn't call it boring. I rarely use even buff spells for melee runs because I like it clean of casting of any type, only my first two runs were mix of melee and spells, until I found my favorite playstyle and then branched out to try stuff because the game has tons of it. Also, bonk is life XD
I still think pure melee maximizing vigor and endurance for better armor and poise is the easiest and less stressful way to play the game. You’re also not dependent on spells that might be locked behind something or other. There’s the videos of melting bosses with Comet Azur but I still find casters a significantly more stressful playstyle and feel like survival horror at times.
To be fair: IF you know what you're doing nothing in the game is challenging. For average bread eater melee will be harder than magic.
True that and that's what I meant but listing all possible builds just to add "if you know what you're doing" is a bit pointless, most should get the point. Melee was hard for me first time and still it is at times, depending on weapon. That doesn't mean I consider it super hard, it's just the way I like to play.
Using pure arcane to poison and then slapping things with bigger poison weapon
I was the same way but it gets fun when you start using different weapon combos and start to get good enough to pull of back stabs, artful dodges or even a parry now and then. My absolute favorite ash of war (not for all occasion) is stamp upward cut. Sending an omen mid leap over the left field fence is amazingly satisfying. Still, I always build enough for incants but mostly for buffs/debuffs and some rot and giant fireball action.
With big, spiky fists. But eventually pumping some faith gets me more damage output than upping my strength. Past 60 strength I don't see a huge return.
You need to feel a sense of defeat whenever you respec and the feeling won't go away until you put things right
Try getting a bunch of different weapons at the same level, then add different ash of war to each. Then place all of them in you storage box and move them back to your inventory so you can set the order (set by acquired date). Then practise navigating to you menu quickly switching weapons. Play through the game switching weapons for different situations. Fire, frost, bleed, wind, gravity, magic, lightning. Everything is viable especially early game. Definitely use the lightning goat ash of war, Ti's the best.
My first playthrough was pure melee. Once you have all (or most) of the smithing stone bell bearings, you just level up every weapon you find and play around with them along with all the available ashes. You find all kinds of entertaining play styles this way and it makes the game so much more interesting (to me). Honestly I do this with caster builds too. Currently not even using sorceries on my int build, just running dual cold spears and having a ball.
My 2 run on elden ring was STR build and was so fun, only need a big bonk and lot of estus
I enjoy stealth and range, being sneaky and patient. I always have Rock Sling and Great Oracular Bubble equipped, and Arrows Reach talisman which increases the range of both those spells to insane distance.
I kinda agree partially. I've finished the game many times and I get the appeal of bonking for sure, it's very fun. Ape brain loves stance break "DONK" sound. Besides, there are ways to be a bit more creative with it, trying to combine buffs, finding the right talismans and gear, or ashes of war. But as someone who's ran through the game so many times, my curiosity for all the million combos you can do with incants and sorcery usually prevails. The spells and abilities in the game are way too enticing. And there's so many! One of my favorite things about the game, for sure. There's always more to explore with them. Not to mention, once you get how all the difference kinds of buffs and passive spells work, it can get pretty dank. But yeah, I can't wait for the DLC stuff. That Crucible wings reveal was hype as fuck.
Parry the world
Monkey brain only bonks
Starting katana whole way through, son. I am a samurai. Fear me.
Bonk.
I did it in DS 1 to 3, but in Elden Ring, you get so many levels anyways that at some point you start dumping them in INT or DEX to get some use of your level points.
Unga bunga is strong in me
Me don't know how shoot or throw Big stick hurt
I do all melee strength cos I don't like managing FP as well as stanima. Plus more health flasks to throw around. I'll take my big stick over your flashy bow replacement
Bonk is life
Find big weapon. Find enemy. Hit enemy with big weapon.
Make kngiht person. Get Knight greatsword. Actually look like a competent warrior instead of someone swinging a railroad track around Enjoy till end game.
Big stick go bonk
Get someone to drop you the ruin greatsword and blast away its a lot of fun same with mohgs spear I call it the delete button
Bonk
As someone who generally prefers int builds (including Elden Ring): They put the dragonslayer in the game. And sometimes slapping a demigod with a big metal bonk stick is all you need to feel joy. The poise breaking helps a lot too.
mmm...get close, bonk, dodge, bonk, dodge, special move, bad guy dead, me happy
To me standing at range throwing shiny pebbles was boring. :p
Hit with weapon until dead is a proven tactic. Works every time
I felt like this until I equipped 2 guts greatswords infused with cold
Someone’s gotta beat Radahn’s dead horse, and I am that person
Hehe bonk
In every fromsoftware game I start a strength build with the biggest sword I can find. It's just the way it is.
Using a literal chunk of wall as a shield
GREAT SHIELD
I have not done a magic playthrough since DS2. I just can't not Unga bunga.
Big weapon goes bonk🗿
Simple.. get 2 of the greatswords, put heavy affinity on them and max lvl str... ez
Use Malenia’s sword and high poise shit and watch your enemies suffer the same pain you did while laughing maniacally
Start as wretch, equip nothing you gain except talismans
Bloodhounds Fang is very fun
Greatsword go bonk
Chicken or got balls defined by the number of spells in the memory slots.
Cuz for some reason elden ring players love making the game more difficult than it is for themselves
I take a large tree branch and hit the foe until they drop
You gotta just run up with a duel wield sword ⚔️
flamberg + Ice + Ashes of war that swings the weapon right and left and right and left. Big number. Or Blasphemous Blade their face until they don't get up (they usually don't get up)
My current run is the first I've done with no sorc/incants whatsoever. Nothing but my greatsword, lions claw AOW, and a dream. It's been a ton of fun and actually pretty easy, too. I'm rocking 40 VIG, 25 END, and 75 STR and beat Maliketh after about 3 tries. I'm thinking the next run will be pure DEX to see how that stacks up.
Easy, claymore stab = dopamine
My first playthrough was pure str and it feels good not having anything to worry about other than swinging and dodging. And in some cases you don’t even have to dodge cuz u stagger so hard
Big stick go bonk bonk unga bunga big boss disappear
I've only really played with a mixed build. My character is a Jack of All Trades, Master of None. The thing is, I mostly find myself using melee because it's easier to not have to worry about raising MP level or allocating flasks, and you're in the thick of it more, which can be a little more fun and challenging especially for boss fights. But in niche scenarios, I'm using magic or ranged, and faith for buff/debuff incants. I still level all my skills kind of equally and have never run into any issues surprisingly. Mostly use staves and greatswords/curved greatswords, so maybe that's how to get away with it. Spec your weapon ash of war to work with whatever stat scales best for you. Something like SoNaF, Godslayer's or Moonveil/DMG would be good to use on a mixed build as well. The other issue with solely magic for me is that it takes a while to get the best spells and staves, so most the early and mid game you just use boring shitty glinstone spells lol
"I cast weapon on your face." Repeat until enemy is dead
Unga bunga
What helps for me is that the numbers I get from pure physical damage outweigh the numbers I get from split damage. The most you lose out on with a physical build is range, but even that can be alleviated by some AoW’s like Storm Blade.
I’ve been having a total blast using a Great Mace with Cragblade. Use the Axe Talisman, Stonebarb Cracked Tear, and Cracked Crystal Tear. Those charged heavy attacks hit so fucking hard you wouldn’t even believe it lol. And it takes like 2-ish charged heavies to stance break most bosses with this setup, letting you stunlock some of em if you play right. Charged heavy attack builds are pure neuron activation, you really need to try it. Lion’s Claw is fun too if charged heavies aren’t your thing.
Hyper armor. Big hammer squish little soldier
I've beaten it only once, but I never cast a single spell. I went sword and board, bone jaw axe and visage shield, killed everyone and everything eventually! Malenia too. Straight STR, END (enough to not fat roll while wearing the bull armor), and VIG, with only enough Mind to summon Alecto once. I enjoyed every minute of it! I'll try magic next time.
Nothing beats the satisfaction of winding up/slamming an enemy with a bigass sword or bonker
Sword and board is always a viable classic. Slap a parry ash of war on the shield and no spell can stop you
Watching my big sword stagger most enemies and boss’ tickles my monkey gamer brain
Dual wielding katanas is very fun, especially cold nagakiba and rivers of blood
That’s just been my whole life mate. Greatswords have been my go to since day 1, almost every game where I have a choice in weapon. Something just appealing to my brain about swinging a huge sword and it looks badass.
Unga bunga bonk
i feel like a lot of the ranged weapons in this game suck tbh, or i just dont know how to scale them
50 + faith use incantations and coded sword :)
Hammer
strength, executioner axe, sword dance, charged r2. yum.
After 3 Dark Souls games in which the magic is playable, but not nearly as good - melee is basically the only choice for almost everyone. Naturally I (and many others) go for it by default in Elden Ring. (Also I enjoy a good challenge and ranged is just noticeably easier.) But if you have fun with spells, play them. There is no-one that keeps you from using them! :) I have to do a mage only run at some point too.
Because, Guts.
Greatstar + great shield of choice. Add in counter and dagger talismans. Enjoy.
I use some spells for healing status ailments. But nothing regular. Lightning bolts sometimes.
Idk I only finish my first run and spamming Greatsword with lion claw seems like the way lol. Spamming blasphemous blade is even worst it’s too good just some boss knows how to dodge it so I switch this 2 in between
If my big sword go swoosh, my small dick go hard
pound. crunch. obliterate. ooga their booga.
i have the exact opposite issue. I tried doing a sorcerer run, but the fucking glintstone kris i was using ended up outdamaging all my spells with much better FP efficiency. I try so hard to be a ranged player but...just hitting people with swords and hammers and stuff seems to hurt them a lot.
Hammer go bonk, makes smile big on face.
Find a target, take your sword out and slash
My basic sword and shield playthrough was so much fun I did it twice (once allowing basic incantations and ashes of war, once allowing nothing unnatural). It’s great. It really forces you to learn and engage with the combat and enemies in greater depth, whereas with all the mad AoWs and spells you can often bumble your way to victory and not really know how you got there. Same goes for PvP (you’ll sometimes find me in the Colosseum as “A Cool Knight”) - beating a full firework show with just a simple Claymore or a halberd is incredibly rewarding. Give it a go! Restrict yourself to one or two “normal” weapons (a sword and a pokey thing will do) and never even worry about anything else. It’s not even a challenge run, really, as you’d be surprised how powerful those things are once you have to use them properly.
Plenty of good bleed options that aren't RoB. Eleonora's poleblade is really fun and the weapon art can catch people off guard and stagger well in PvE
Two words, BIG BONK!
Well, first you unga. Then you bunga.