Soulslike - Discussion, News, Memes

Yes it's been said that a few more characters might be coming. Judging by the release trailers, Watcher might be added later, but she's a bit of a controversial character. She basically only has one build and some feel like she's too strong. If they add her back to the game, I'm afraid they might have to change her fundamentally or nerf her which would kinda break her power fantasy.

I'm not sure if that's really the case, but to me it feels like Claw is much rarer than it was in the first game. Did they bump up the rarity? Generally speaking, the first act is the most difficult one - once you a good deck rolling with some solid basics, you're gonna have a much easier time in the following acts.

In the first game, you'd wanna front-load adding damage cards to your deck; here it depends on the add you get. In the Overgrowth, you want to front-load damage, in the Underdocks you want to front-load defensive cards.

A solid and pretty easy archetype to build most of the time is a Lightning build, with some added Frost synergies if you want defensive options. There's a couple really good Lightning cards, like Lightning Strike or that dense card that channels a Lightning orb at the beginning of your next two turns. Adding some focus to the mix for strong passive orb procs helps a lot too - even the ones that exhaust themselves for some surprise burst. A Frost orb build is a bit more passive and scales into the late game quite well.

There's also a status card build you can play, but I haven't really tried that yet - seems solid, though. Generally speaking, just pick a card you don't know here and there and get a feeling for the character to see what works and what doesn't is the most basic methodology for any character. Since you'll rarely get the one run with all the cards you want, you need to be adaptable and know what to pick up when. So it's not super easy to give general advice. However, there's a channel I can recommend to you that's really good: https://youtube.com/@calebgannongaming

Not sure if that would end up being too strong since it can get to one-shot territory rather quickly and would maneuver around having a bigger deck a little too consistently. But maybe I'm wrong. :)

End of Days is really really good, even outside dedicated Doom builds. It just clears so many early hallway by itself AoE fights.

Fair points about the open world. To me, the open world just isn't as appealing as other constituents of Elden Ring, so I personally don't gain as much enjoyment out of it. But I still very much see the appeal. I enjoyed BotW thoroughly, for example, and Miyazaki himself mentioned that they borrowed from Zelda's design philosophy for ER.

I also somewhat agree about your points with the usability of items. I guess I'm the type of player to not fully engage with every bit of a soulslike, so in an average run most of these are pretty much useless to me. But I see the value in repeat/challenge runs.

The Hardtear was a nice attempt and it did bring me some joy, but it's just not the same as Sekiro, LoP or Khazan - different strokes for different folks.

I guess the visceralness of BB's combat juxtaposed to the methodical approach to combat? The latter feels a bit lacking to me in ER.

It's definitely skill issue and not specifically the fault of the game about the pace of the bosses. Like in any soulslike, you need to adapt and re-evaluate your approach to combat. Overall, however, it just feels like too much to me, unfortunately.

No worries - you're passionate and that's awesome!

I'll edit later for StS-related stuff :)