Following on from my post two up the thread, after 103 hours I've completed my first playthrough. After playing for that long i feel the need to get my thoughts down on paper...
Difficulty
I would agree with those who say that the game is as difficult as you want it to be. This is the first soulslike game I've played so I went into it with the sole objective of completing it. With that in mind, I was more than happy to use all the most powerful weapons, do a bit of rune farming and get some tips on the toughest boss fights before starting them to see what does and doesn't work etc etc. Doing it that way, there were some moments of peak-difficulty which I'll discuss below, but it made the bits that i was expecting to be difficult, such as the Melania fight, much easier than anticipated. The walkthrough I followed ended up with a boss rush right at the end in the following order:
My build
As mentioned in my previous post, I started out with a Bloodhound's Fang quality build. After that I switched to strength using the Greatsword, then once I finally got hold of a sombering 7 (I already had the 8/9/Ancient) went back to a fully levelled Bloodhound's Fang. I used that for the majority of the game, but finally I re-specced using a larval tear to a faith build to use the Blasphemous Blade. By the end of the game I think I was level 173 with the key stats being 60 vig, 30 mind (to keep spamming Takers Flame) and 66 Faith. I've got to say I wasn't overly convinced by the incantations that my faith build could use. They were good, but far from amazing. On the other hand a fully levelled Blasphemous Blade is somewhat of a cheat code. Particularly in the end game where nothing seems to have fire resistance. It probably shone brightest though in the Haligtree against things like the Ulcerated Tree Spirit and Erdtree Avatar which are weak to fire and were consequently completely melted. Also worth noting that in the late game I was using the Mimic Tear or Black Knife Tiche summons against all the bosses. I would say that having a solid summons does more to reduce the difficulty than anything else in the game. Not for the damage they do (helpful as it is), but for simply giving you a moment to use your flask / cast a buff or whatever else you need to do. Using the Blasphemous / mimic combo so your summons can heal itself and last the full fight is a huge benefit!
My toughest fights
Having said all that, some opponents were very hard. The really tough ones for me were:
1. The Draconic Tree Sentinel in Farum Azula that guards the gate to Maliketh. Weirdly, I killed the previous one no worries at all and wondered what all the fuss was about. This one though, I tried multiple weapons and approaches and it still took me over an hour. The best approach would have been to use a shield, but I didn't use a shield all game.
2. The Ball Bearing hunter in Dragonbarrow, Caelid. Tempted to put this guy top. He was a nightmare that again took 1 - 1.5 hours to kill, albeit for the first 30mins I was fat rolling and hadn't noticed. I would say this was the enemy where I had to learn their move set in the most detail to beat them. Again, shield and parry would be the best way to go but I went melee / dodge.
3. Death Rite Bird in the Consecrated Snowfields. Another 1 hr plus fight. Again, in some respects this could be first on the list but I've put it last as I never looked up what it was weak to. If I went back to it now with the holy build I created after defeating it, I think I could take it down much more easily, whereas the two above would still be a PITA. No two ways about it though, it had some OP AoE attacks.
It's no coincidence that you can't use your summons for any of those fights...
What i would change in the game
As great a game as it is, it's not perfect. For my own personal preferences, I would change the following:
Difficulty
I would agree with those who say that the game is as difficult as you want it to be. This is the first soulslike game I've played so I went into it with the sole objective of completing it. With that in mind, I was more than happy to use all the most powerful weapons, do a bit of rune farming and get some tips on the toughest boss fights before starting them to see what does and doesn't work etc etc. Doing it that way, there were some moments of peak-difficulty which I'll discuss below, but it made the bits that i was expecting to be difficult, such as the Melania fight, much easier than anticipated. The walkthrough I followed ended up with a boss rush right at the end in the following order:
- Loretta, Knight of the Haligtree
- Malenia, Blade of Miquella
- Maliketh, the Black Blade
- Hoarah Loux, Warrior
- Radagan of the Golden Order / Elden Beast
My build
As mentioned in my previous post, I started out with a Bloodhound's Fang quality build. After that I switched to strength using the Greatsword, then once I finally got hold of a sombering 7 (I already had the 8/9/Ancient) went back to a fully levelled Bloodhound's Fang. I used that for the majority of the game, but finally I re-specced using a larval tear to a faith build to use the Blasphemous Blade. By the end of the game I think I was level 173 with the key stats being 60 vig, 30 mind (to keep spamming Takers Flame) and 66 Faith. I've got to say I wasn't overly convinced by the incantations that my faith build could use. They were good, but far from amazing. On the other hand a fully levelled Blasphemous Blade is somewhat of a cheat code. Particularly in the end game where nothing seems to have fire resistance. It probably shone brightest though in the Haligtree against things like the Ulcerated Tree Spirit and Erdtree Avatar which are weak to fire and were consequently completely melted. Also worth noting that in the late game I was using the Mimic Tear or Black Knife Tiche summons against all the bosses. I would say that having a solid summons does more to reduce the difficulty than anything else in the game. Not for the damage they do (helpful as it is), but for simply giving you a moment to use your flask / cast a buff or whatever else you need to do. Using the Blasphemous / mimic combo so your summons can heal itself and last the full fight is a huge benefit!
My toughest fights
Having said all that, some opponents were very hard. The really tough ones for me were:
1. The Draconic Tree Sentinel in Farum Azula that guards the gate to Maliketh. Weirdly, I killed the previous one no worries at all and wondered what all the fuss was about. This one though, I tried multiple weapons and approaches and it still took me over an hour. The best approach would have been to use a shield, but I didn't use a shield all game.
2. The Ball Bearing hunter in Dragonbarrow, Caelid. Tempted to put this guy top. He was a nightmare that again took 1 - 1.5 hours to kill, albeit for the first 30mins I was fat rolling and hadn't noticed. I would say this was the enemy where I had to learn their move set in the most detail to beat them. Again, shield and parry would be the best way to go but I went melee / dodge.
3. Death Rite Bird in the Consecrated Snowfields. Another 1 hr plus fight. Again, in some respects this could be first on the list but I've put it last as I never looked up what it was weak to. If I went back to it now with the holy build I created after defeating it, I think I could take it down much more easily, whereas the two above would still be a PITA. No two ways about it though, it had some OP AoE attacks.
It's no coincidence that you can't use your summons for any of those fights...
What i would change in the game
As great a game as it is, it's not perfect. For my own personal preferences, I would change the following:
- The day/night cycle for bosses. The time of day system is generally great and having bosses that only appear at night is fine but.... For the ball bearing hunter fight above, every time you die you have to rest, reset to night, then rest again just to get him to appear. That's just a poor system. Why not have a Stake of Marika style approach that keeps it night time?
- The game has a crazy amount of weapons to choose from but you get to a point in the game where you might have one or two fully levelled weapons, but not the stones required to level another. So you either use it was a weak weapon or not at all. I get that they don't want everyone to have a whole suite of maxed out weapons, but it's too restrictive as it stands imo. Why not have a system that allows you to transfer the top end stones from one weapon to another a few times just so you can try some stuff? That would be a nice quality of life change that wouldn't make the game easier or harder, but would make it more varied. As it stands, you need to go through NG+ for that.
- The ability to create loadouts. Not something that would break the larval tear system, but rather just something that would let you save a particular equipment set-up allowing you to switch between approaches easily without needing to think through every talisman / flask / spell / incantation / ash of war etc every time. You set it all up once, save it, and if you change your stats so you can no longer use some of the items in it then it becomes inaccessible.
- Clearer instructions for key binds on keyboard and mouse!
the two minutes were worth it.