Playing through the dlc I was wondering are spirit ashes the easy mode or are the bosses actually balanced around them? I had an issue with elden ring bosses being so hyper aggressive in fights with attack chains that last 3 months giving you a window for like 5 seconds to attack which as a strength user seemingly was impossible to do anything without a not strength build. Taking any boss head on feels like a challenge run in an older fromsoft games some elden ring bosses gave me more shit than sekiro.
But when I summon the fight actually kinda feels balanced around it. The attack chain agro being taken away momentarily so you can deliver some damage then playing a kind of hot potato until the fight ends.
Usually easy modes in fromsoft games are a limited resource, humanity for summoning players that also puts you at risk of invasion or finite use healing items to use when you run out of flasks (not ds2) the concept was to make the game easier there needed to be a risk nothing was given for free.
Now that’s what’s strange about spirit summons, they’re practically free. Outside of a little fp/hp cost there is no risk and no drawback to summoning them. Which makes me wonder if the game was intentionally balanced around players using them for every boss fight.
Thoughts?
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You can take my jellyfish girlfriend from my cold undead hands.
Jellyfish is what saved the game for me. Legitimately couldn’t do margit at all and then i summoned her and she carried me all the way to the mimic tear lol. Definitely my most favourite summon.
Also has one of the most heartwarming questlines.
I think the game is balanced around them, yeah. I don’t think they’re easy mode.
My problem with them isn’t a “git gud scrub” thing, I just hate ai companions making the bosses behavior erratic. It’s why I usually prefer to play Monster Hunter solo instead of multiplayer, the boss randomly switching target makes watching for tells and openings harder than 1v1.
Although this means that I’m slamming my head into the brick wall that are these dlc bosses lol
DLC bosses are balanced around them. Not using spirit ashes in the DLC seems to crank the difficulty to 11.
Either way they are not easy mode.
The fact that the DLC features two progression items, one for your character and one for your spirit ashes, definitely reenforces this fact.
Usually easy modes in fromsoft games are a limited resource, humanity for summoning players that also puts you at risk of invasion or finite use healing items to use when you run out of flasks (not ds2) the concept was to make the game easier there needed to be a risk nothing was given for free.
Was there actually ever any game after Demon Souls where the coop enabling item wasn’t in some way farmable, if just by helping other players in coop?
I do feel like spirit ashes are just a continuation of From making coop play easier and easier while at the same time giving offline players coop-like options. Dark Souls 1 already introduced NPC summons and added tons of ways to farm humanity (including giving the player passive soft humanity just from beating enemies), Spirit Ashes are simply way to allow the player to almost always have a summon available, while also integrating them into the loot and progression system.
Elden Ring certainly does feel like the bosses are tuned for you to either be in coop or use the summons, but I feel that the game encouraging you to use any option you have when interacting with the world is more in tune with the spirit of these games than the 1v1, no summons, no magic, sword only mindset some players have. It just obviously sucks when a boss is impossible when playing solo and a cakewalk when using summons, but for the most part they get the balance somewhat in the middle.
I’ve only beaten two of the rememberance bosses in the DLC so far and while I did use both the NPC summons and the mimic tear for them, both fights ended with both of my summons dead and me without healing items, making for a pretty tense finish, which seems pretty much perfect.
but I feel that the game encouraging you to use any option you have when interacting with the world is more in tune with the spirit of these games than the 1v1, no summons, no magic, sword only mindset some players have
Actually thats a fair point i forgot about. All the souls games provide a massive arsenal for dealing with just about any problem outside of sekiro which is a very directed experience. But to use that arsenal is generally deemed as cheese even though it’s all mechanically viable.
My first run through all the games was a cheese run, i threw dung over the wall of the capra demon boss fight and skipped half the game with the master key. Adorned myself with Havel’s armour and face tanked Manus without dodging once.
I got lost in the sauce of naked katana nohit mentality
as a strength user seemingly was impossible to do anything without a not strength build.
A strength build in elden ring is kind of hardmode in its own right. You get some really strong options for some bosses, but you’re still generally stuck with slow melee weapons that you basically have to already know a fight very well to use. I went into it the first time with an ultra-greatsword build and did mostly fine up until reaching some of the later bosses, while my second playthrough I went arcane with dual whips and just rolled everything without trouble.
Which makes me wonder if the game was intentionally balanced around players using them for every boss fight.
It definitely feels like it. The game actively pushes it in your face and says “here use this,” they’re a frequent reward for clearing dungeons, and there’s even some quest content that requires you to use them to make things happen. They’re not mandatory, but they seem like the expected choice. Especially since there’s the tradeoff that they make bosses more erratic and rarely do all that much on their own - they’re a force amplifier when used right, but it’s easy for them to make a fight harder and then die without contributing.
I went arcane with dual whips and just rolled everything without trouble.
The game gives you two hoslow petal whips in one run for a reason. Occult bleed whips feels so good right up until the bosses stop bleeding.
Yeah. Then for the ones that don’t, you just use the dragon communion seal to cast stone of gurranq until they die.
Or at least that was the go-to when I played through. I’m going to start a fresh playthrough on the current patch, as soon as I can manage to kill the damn grafted scion in the tutorial again. I did it on what went on to become that arcane whip character back then, so I just need to shake the rust off and get back into the swing of the game now.
many bosses are balanced around them especially in the DLC i’ve noticed
I feel like the game was absolutely balanced to an extent around spirit summons - especially the NPC companion ones you can get for certain bosses like Rogier for Margrit. If a NPC has a summon, I’m summoning them every time if I have trouble soloing the boss but I will usually rarely also do a spirit ash; but I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with doing so.
dlc spoiler
and if I’m being honest, I went into the DLC with a lvl150 fucking dex/faith/int build and the goddamn moonveil katana because I’d apparently been fucking around with a really annoying blackflame pvp build at some point in between putting the game down like a year ago and picking it back up for the DLC this weekend. And I got so mad dying to Rellana for the like 30th time in a row that I went ‘ok fine fuck it’, equipped Mimic Tear +8, summoned Leda the NPC and used Golden Vow on her, walked into the boss and immediately summoned my mimic. watched in awe as they fucking ganged up on her as I just used the Magma Breath incantation, rolled 15 feet away and spammed black flame/blade & spinning disc incantations with the occasional flask refill at her until she died. kinda trivialized like 90% of the fight because I would just camp on the sides throwing blackflame and when she’d attack, run away from her going ‘help help!!!’ until she realized Leda and my mimic were still throwing shit at her & resumed fighting them. Immediately clipped it and sent it to my tryhard friends & they were actually irate with me but fuck it I’ve fully embraced the ‘useless priest’ RP I’m doing through the DLC. There’s nothing wrong with doing this - the game was built with these mechanics in mind. If Miyazaki cared about me spamming Black Blade that much, he’d patch it out of the game!!! Hope this helps: https://streamable.com/lp6gwy
This is pretty much what I did with Malenia when I had enough with the bullshit. Black knife tiche and some black flame buff just deletes health and I actually had to not use her in the DLC cos the DLC buff things made her a bit too powerful.
Mimic is nicely balanced atm and provides a nice companion who isn’t too op.
Also that boss looks suspiciously like Pontiff Sullyvhan
Also that boss looks suspiciously like Pontiff Sullyvhan
Yeah her weapon is literally just his combined into a single greatsword that can be two-handed, ash of war and all. it has become my main weapon sadly because rule of cool (and because light greatswords are fucking op!!!)
The game is definitely balanced around them but making the player reliant on the jank of AI can make the fights hit-or-miss.
Sometimes your summon will get bodied by the boss in 10 seconds, sometimes it’ll last the entire fight taking off a quarter of the boss’s healthbar. There’s just a large range of things that can happen which are mostly outside of player control.
yeah doing some bosses with spirit ash does feel heavily RNG based tbh. it’s still fun but it can be annoying
ur a casual if you use them
your also a casual if you run, dodge, block, parry, jump, use a skill, use a spell, use a jumping heavy attack , use a charged attack or use a flask
Latenna is my bestie who watches over me from high up that cliff right at the edge of the summoning zone.
Loved her so much for open field fights.
I did almost everything in ER in Jolly Cooperation, often helping other people run bosses until I was confident I could solo them then summoning for them anyway. I remember making some people large angry about that, saying it’s an mp game and it’s easier to summon other players for almost every fight than ever. And people replaied that they shouldn’t have to do mp in an sp game which, very weird way to view souls games.
Can make it very boring and lonely if you never use MP at all.
I used to be one of those and now it’s just way funner to summon another bone head to play the game with every so often
Saw this post super late but personally I don’t think the bosses were designed to need spirit ashes. When I use them, it feels like it’s primarily to give me extra openings I wouldn’t otherwise get. At least for me, it doesn’t feel as satisfying, so I only use it for the really obnoxious bosses like the double fights.
That said, they definitely don’t feel like they’re meant to be done exclusively melee. The game gives you a lot of ranged tools, with spells, incantations, bows, some weapon abilities, and craftable items all being options. A lot of bosses become way harder if you have to be in melee to do damage, especially the giant ones that move around a lot and fuck with the camera. I haven’t used ashes at all in the DLC yet, but if I was going melee only I might have had to on some of the bosses.
I think they’re intended for base game even, doubly so in the DLC. However there are at least three bosses I know of who, through a combination of aggression and arena design, actively punish trying to spirit summon so idk.
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