Official Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree Thread - 10/10 IGN, 10/10 GS, 95 Meta - Game of the Year. Best DLC oif All Time.

[-GD-X★ 7,972]

anyone who's on the fence about the difficulty can breathe a sigh of relief. there are so many broken builds (hell, i have made some of my own), and the latest patch should make it more approachable. shiiiii you can get two extra summons for the final boss (if you do several quests). i was able to beat the boss without them, so i can imagine how much easier the final fight is with them.

[JonDnD 2,818]

4 minutes ago, Remij said:

Trust me, I'd be bitching if the game ran like it does it that video on my PC  

 

My shit is smooth  

No you wouldnt 

[-GD-X★ 7,972]

Impenetrable thorns is so broken. I destroyed

Spoiler

midra lord of “limp” flame

 In like a minute with it. That’s the last of the mainline bosses for me. The rest are just recycled ones. 

[Casual 756]

Sitting outside of the final boss room. Will tackle that tonight. 
 

Otherwise I’m basically done. Have 19 Scadutree Fragment upgrades and 9 spirit upgrades. Got an extra fragment so I guess I missed two. Maybe I’ll look them up later (hopefully it’s one of the 2x locations). Pretty sure I completed all the big stuff, did a quick look at the main bosses and definitely got all those done, nothing obviously missing map wise. I didn’t do any quests except the finger dude, I’ll probably look more into those on my next playthrough but I’ve never really cared to do quests in these games unless there’s meaningful content locked behind them. 
 

Had a great time overall, probably around 30 hours, maybe a bit less.
 

The biggest upgrade over the base game is still the world. I loved the open world in Elden Ring but it didn’t quite have that Souls feeling of exploration. This one definitely did, so many oh shit moments when you find a shortcut and it brings you somewhere you were trying to get 3 hours ago. The world is way more interconnected and layered. 
 

I didn’t mess around with too many of the new weapon types yet but I liked the Great Katanas a lot. Ended up using one as one of my main weapons (along with Messmers spear, and of course old trust Malikeths). Got my eyes on a couple other weapons I’d like to try on NG+ - mostly that Shadow Sunflower and Euporia. 

Some light spoilers:

 

Spoiler

I wish there were one or two more legacy dungeons. Belarut, Ensis and Shadow Keep felt like the only proper ones and they were all in the first half of the DLC (though seems like some others are doing Shadow Keep later). I know they technically categorize Midra’s Mance as a legacy but it wasn’t long enough imo . 
 

This is made up for somewhat by the world being denser and more connected. There’s definitely a few areas in the world that felt underutilized though - hinterlands was beautiful but not much there, as an example. 
 

I also personally wasn’t a fan of the Abyssal Woods but can appreciate what they were trying to do and it’s a nice change of pace if nothing else 

I didn’t find the difficulty bad at all. My main complaint would actually be that pretty much everything but the bosses was too easy. Didn’t seem to be much danger in the normal enemies. 

Edited 20 hours ago by Casual

[-GD-X★ 7,972]

Just now, Casual said:

Sitting outside of the final boss room. Will tackle that tonight. 
 

Otherwise I’m basically done. Have 19 Scadutree Fragment upgrades and 9 spirit upgrades. Got an extra fragment so I guess I missed two. Maybe I’ll look them up later (hopefully it’s one of the 2x locations). Pretty sure I completed all the big stuff, did a quick look at the main bosses and definitely got all those done, nothing obviously missing map wise. I didn’t do any quests except the finger dude, I’ll probably look more into those on my next playthrough but I’ve never really cared to do quests in these games unless there’s meaningful content locked behind them. 
 

Had a great time overall, probably around 30 hours, maybe a bit less.
 

The biggest upgrade over the base game is still the world. I loved the open world in Elden Ring but it didn’t quite have that Souls feeling of exploration. This one definitely did, so many oh shit moments when you find a shortcut and it brings you somewhere you were trying to get 3 hours ago. The world is way more interconnected and layered. 
 

I didn’t mess around with too many of the new weapon types yet but I liked the Great Katanas a lot. Ended up using one as one of my main weapons (along with Messmers spear, and of course old trust Malikeths). Got my eyes on a couple other weapons I’d like to try on NG+ - mostly that Shadow Sunflower and Euporia. 

Some light spoilers:

 

  Hide contents

I wish there were one or two more legacy dungeons. Belarut, Ensis and Shadow Keep felt like the only proper ones and they were all in the first half of the DLC (though seems like some others are doing Shadow Keep later). I know they technically categorize Midra’s Mance as a legacy but it wasn’t long enough imo . 
 

This is made up for somewhat by the world being denser and more connected. There’s definitely a few areas in the world that felt underutilized though - hinterlands was beautiful but not much there, as an example. 
 

I also personally wasn’t a fan of the Abyssal Woods but can appreciate what they were trying to do and it’s a nice change of pace if nothing else 

I didn’t find the difficulty bad at all. My main complaint would actually be that pretty much everything but the bosses was too easy. Didn’t seem to be much danger in the normal enemies. 

i felt a spike in difficulty when i entered the dlc with 0 scadutree fragments. once i had like 4, the main enemies felt easy to kill (but still packed a punch, just not a 1 or 2 shot kill lol). as for the bosses, they were challenging...until i started hunting more scadutrees. some became too easy. there's one "hard" one i had accidentally skipped, in the middle of the campaign, and killed him in like 30 seconds.  the worst fight is the one, just before the final battle. ridiculously easy. i was like, "that's it?!" as for the world....wow! i really loved exploring it, since it didn't feel bloated like the base game. the scadutree fragments/ashes definitely gave an incentive to explore every nook and cranny. also, the 3 questlines i did OWNED! i wish i had done all of them, though. i'll eventually replay this.

[Casual 756]

3 minutes ago, -GD-X said:

i felt a spike in difficulty when i entered the dlc with 0 scadutree fragments. once i had like 4, the main enemies felt easy to kill (but still packed a punch, just not a 1 or 2 shot kill lol). as for the bosses, they were challenging...until i started hunting more scadutrees. some became too easy. there's one "hard" one i had accidentally skipped, in the middle of the campaign, and killed him in like 30 seconds.  the worst fight is the one, just before the final battle. ridiculously easy. i was like, "that's it?!" as for the world....wow! i really loved exploring it, since it didn't feel bloated like the base game. the scadutree fragments/ashes definitely gave an incentive to explore every nook and cranny. also, the 3 questlines i did OWNED! i wish i had done all of them, though. i'll eventually replay this.

Yeah agreed on the second to last boss. Messmer was still the hardest for me…the main dragon dude also took me a handful of tries. 

[-GD-X★ 7,972]

10 minutes ago, Casual said:

Yeah agreed on the second to last boss. Messmer was still the hardest for me…the main dragon dude also took me a handful of tries. 

Messmer is just an all-around amazing fight. Though, I’ve seen dudes make builds so broken, that their mimic can solo him  but as a fair fight, he was cool af. Very challenging, even after mastering his movement pattern in phase 2. 

[-GD-X★ 7,972]

holy shit. and i thought impenetrable thorns were broken af.

 

 

 

edit: i sooooo gotta try this faith builds are the GOAT lol.