A fun fact about the cleanrot knight in stillwater cave - the reason he drops the winged sword talisman is because he uses it! all of malenia's cleanrot knights were gifted winged insignias signifying their devotion to her, and you can actually see the attack boost they get from the talisman during gameplay! just a little thing most people wouldn't notice, but it has really fun and interesting lore implications. Classic FromSoft.
Also the reason why the cleanrot knight is there is because Malenia and Co. marched through Liurnia to get at Godrick and Radahn, as explained by the Sword Monument on the eastern road through the zone.
Also Mohg and his Sanguine Nobles have Lord of Blood's Exultation, making them more powerful whenever you or them gets blood loss'd. You can actually see the particle effect on them, too.
I love how he went on a rant at the end of the video talking about how he doesnt care about lore reasons and people still put comments explaining the lore. Classic FromSoft community at its finest
Honestly I was pretty disappointed with the altering armor. I was expecting to add cool pieces to it that add buff but instead all I got was an Edna Mode needle that said "NO CAPES"
I thought it could've been cool. I wish I could keep the scarf on the drake knight armor and ditch only the weird cape. There are a lot of outfits that have different stylings/scarfs/whatever and it sucks that you have to choose between all or nothing in almost every instance.
His glass cannon nature is really bad. He dies so fast that not even his DOT damage can make up for it. He either dies before he can do anything or deletes you in three attacks.
The hanging astel in Old Altus Tunnel is the same one as is in the Perfumer's Grotto. Meaning if you kill it in one, it won't bother you in the other. Neat detail
I've seen this exact comment of yours multiple time when rewatching this video and I'm sure I found the grotto on one of my first thorough playthroughs but I was still surprised when I found the Grotto again earlier on my current character lol
13:05 Find the Albinauric woman. She hides in a cave to the west of the Laskyar Ruins which jut from the mist-shrouded lake of Liurnia. She knows the location of the medallion’s counterpart, I am sure.
Foul Tarnished, what do you want? I told the all-hearing brute already that I possess no such medallion. Or have you come to take more from me? Was my other half not enough?
Oh...do you speak true? So old Albus entrusted his medallion to you.... Then I've no choice. But to trust that this was his dying will. Let's try again. I'm Latenna. An Albinauric, the same as Old Albus. My apologies for my coarse words earlier. I presumed the worst, seeing that you were another Tarnished, like that all-hearing brute. I hope that you will forgive me.
Not that the lakeside crystal cave itself is special, but it is the cave that leads you to Latenna, which gives it value. The bloodhound knight is there because it was sent by Gideon to try and get info on the haligtree medallion from her
Bloodhound knights are mute, I believe; they would have no possible way to relay information to Gideon. I forget where that's said, but it's a rather important bit of information for this discussion. What I find more likely is that it instead tried to protect latenna, but her wolf was killed during the battle. I say this because we know Gideon isn't above burning villages and killing albinaurics in search of the Haligtree medallion and likely would resort to torture if he could (the game elaborates in great detail _MANY_ albinauric-exclusive torture methods, so it's at least plausible). It's unlikely that he just noped out of the area without utterly destroying it and killing Latenna.
Gideon sent Ensha there, and also Ensha ransacked the village of the albinaurics as well btw ( Latenna refers to him as all-hearing brute ) the bloodhound knight is just randomly there lol
Gowry's set being in the Stillwater Cave is a hint that warns you he's not what he seems. It's probably poison instead of rot because that'd be too intense for Liurnia, and the only areas with Scarlet Rot have lore explanations for why.
Poison is related to rot because both are bottom feeders, those who worship rot typically worship all forms of decay. Something something rot god like rot?
"the only areas with Scarlet Rot have lore explanations for why" - So literally any area in the game can have rot and the fans will come up with some bullshit excuse for it.
@@evanseifert8858 True. That one makes no sense for it to be poison, especially since it's far from the weird poison lake part of Liurnia. Sure those poison guys are found around the rot lake in Caelid, but they are weird poison guys that exist for reasons in those areas.
3:31 I actually was quite amazed when I found out why the faram azula beastman is down there Y'know all those ruins around limgrave? Well their architecture doesn't look like anything else in limgrave does it? But it does look familiar... It's parts of faram azula that have fallen down to limgrave from the sky, so add two and two together, ruins from faram azula fell and the beastman came with it
@@superscatboy They jumped before it hit the bottom, obviously. I think it would have been cool to see them use the dragon breath incantations then you go "oh they used the incantations to cancel the fall damage" but that would give lore reasons for dumb physics. (Also you give some dragon breath incants fall negation but don't put a goddamn fall canceling gravity spell in? Ok. It is a new magic type with ridiculous lore implications but sure, give something obviously related to it to another unrelated spell type)
One detail I really like is that Altus Tunnel and Perfumer's Grotto actually connect in the middle where the Astel is. Killing him in the Grotto will give you an easier time looting the area in Altus Tunnel. I would have given them both a point for this.
Worth noting that while the Dark Moon Greatsword is slightly technically different from the Moonlight Greatsword cameo, the Golden Order Greatsword is implied to just straight up be the Moonlight Greatsword as it's a corruption of the sword Rennala gives to Radagon as her consort. Ranni is Dark Moon and Rennala is Moonlight.
Of note, for the Flamedrake talisman, it prevents most classes with their base kit from being one shot by Agheel's breath attacks. Not incredible, since those do tend to multi hit, but I like that it works out that way.
18:23 - I actually really like this in conjunction with the rest of the level, because it demonstrates that the Gael Tunnel was built and directed to keep out intruders from Limgrave to the west. Presumably, the Redmanes in Fort Gael had a good hold of that whole western stretch of Caelid before it became Dog Country and losing that hold of it is what allows the Tarnished to slip in through the back entrance. The Redmanes are legitimately fierce unlike how the Godrick and Cuckoo factions have been portrayed to that point, but finding an opportunity to get a leg up on them like that gives the Tarnished the chance they need to take them out and move up in the world.
I think it's really cool that the enemies are placed to look and seem like they're intelligent. FromSoft did so much better with that this time around. From the patrols of the soldiers and even their actual placement in the world feeling like a deliberate choice to the Perfumers and Pages in the capital being placed to look like they're conversing with eachother during down time. It all just feels like it makes sense.
The liurnia to Altus cave is the only time the open world format really shined to me, it truly felt like a connection between the two places that felt organic and like it would be there regardless of if the player character existed. Amazing cave
It may be worth mentioning that while the onyx lord in yelough anix tunnel doesn't drop anything, he is guarding an ancient dragon smithing stone that's right behind him
The sword in Highroad Cave, I pronounced as “Shahm-sheer!” Also, I find it funny how the Shamshir when wielded by Millicent has the Waterfowl Dance skill equipped, but the only weapon we have which utilizes this skill in the base game is the Hand of Malenia.
@@pancakke08 I won't lie. I kinda wish the hand of malenia ash of war was her grab attack and waterfowl was a normal ash of war for most normal curved sword types.
@@ChangedCauseYT-HateFoxNames Waterfowl on curved swords makes zero sense though ?? Millicent can use it due to her close ties to Melania, she's also like, very clearly a master swordsman
@@wisp3936 I didn't say curved swords. I said curved like weapons but fair enough. Mastery makes no sense from are perspective considering we can also do the very same attack and we have no ties other then killing malenia.
I also love the Ruin-Strewn Precipice. The items, the functionality as an alternate path to Altus, the atmosphere, the enemy variety. It feels more like a mini dungeon than just another cave
Cave of the Forlorn is actually one of my favorites, definitely in the top three. I mean, there's a frozen dragon, a FROZEN DRAGON, right there that you can look at to your heart's content to drink in all of the little details that you can't normally notice with it trying to bite your face off and all. How did it wedge itself into this tiny cave? How did it get frozen so suddenly; what kind of meteorological catastrophe happened there? AND THEN. There's the whole second layer under the ice that you can look up or down into and see the other side. How awesome is that? It's just so pretty and almost serene. And then the final boss drops a badass-looking greatsword. But then you look at the greatsword and see, oh, there's some lore attached. Why did Radagon cast it away? How did it end up here? Was this the place Radagon left it at? I dunno, I just love it. I make sure to visit at least once a playthrough. The rest of the drops are meh and I don't ever really use the greatsword, so it's kinda useless, but I just really dig the atmosphere; it raises so many questions and I love trekking through it while I make up theories about it. As for the lack of enemy variation, well, it's the Cave of the Forlorn. The misbegotten seem pretty forlorn to me. It's THEIR cave.
This video does a really good job, because it simultaneously makes me want to explore the caves I never went to, while also making me want to avoid them at all costs.
Okay so did you actually want the lore for the caves or nah because honestly they're pretty fun (like the Farum Azula Beastmen probably just... falling out of the sky along with those gigantic chunks of scenery that fell from Farum Azula all over Limgrave, and somehow surviving that fall)
Farum Azula was likely once located in the lake between the Great Rune Towers. Then when the Elden Beast was sent down it likely caused a flood. Hence the Bestial Sanctum and Liurnia. And after getting a few heada and wings cut or ripped off, Dragonlord Placidusax sealed himself while bringing what remained of Farum Azula up. Further away from the landmass.
Extra information: 1:46 You can also just get the better Tailoring Kit from the Church of Vows and never even need to pick up this inferior one (unless you are doing/want to do Boc's Questline). In addition, the Dragon Communion Church there is completely irrelevant in comparison to the one in Caelid which is not even that hard to get to. The main unique thing about this Cave that you didn't mention is that there is a summon available before the Boss Gate. 14:07 This Cave opens up to an area with Latenna (the Albinauric Woman Gideon always mentions after you find one of the Haligtree Medallion pieces). You get her as a Spirit Summon if you have a Haligtree Medallion piece on your person. If you complete her Questline, you get a Somber Ancient Dragon Smithing Stone. However, if you arrive to the area with her past the Cave's exit after you've entered the Consecrated Snowfield, she will be dead and you will be locked out of her Questline (you can still get her as a Spirit Summon, though). 20:32 Fun Fact: On release, the boss for this Cave was the Full-Grown variant of the Fallingstar Beast. 32:50 This Cave also leads to the Divine Tower for activating Rykard's Great Rune. 37:00 This Cave also contains an Ancient Dragon Smithing Stone, the amount of Smithing Stone 8s is also pretty good and there's also a Somber Smithing Stone 9. This Cave's Astel also has a unique grab attack.
I hate the mindless criticism about Astel, Stars of Darkness. As if we don't replay these games for the bosses. It's a good fight and the original is too out-of-the-way, and is clearly repeated because it's not supposed to be a unique entity - making that criticism moot to me. There's a lore reason, not laziness.
@@jackreacher7495 If they didn't want it to be considered lazy, they should have at least had a giant crater or something on the outside, to make it clear that another star had fallen here.
@@jackreacher7495 It would help if the environment reflected that a gigantic thing fell out of the sky. It looks just like a normal ice cave and the surface is undisturbed.
i know a lot of people hated these and the catacombs and the other dungeons, but in my playthrough i told myself i wouldn't use any metas or grind, so i spent a ton of time in these small dungeons and had a ton of fun.
When they'd initially said you'd be able to alter armor, I had been so *monumentally* hyped at the prospects for fashion, because I thought you'd be able to change colors at the very least. Instead, all I got was "cape or no cape." And everyone knows capes are objectively cooler, so why even add the option?
there were some good options like removing the hood on the eccentrics set (i think thats what it is called) so you just get the helmet and the beard which looks really cool.
The winged sword insignias are associated with Millicent's questline because Millicent and her questline are related to Malenia. The cleanrot knight is there because Malenia marched her forces through Liurnia on her way to Caelid, which is written about on a nearby sword memorial. There is lots of poison because poison is a lesser type of rot, as stated in the poison mist item description. It's not scarlet rot because it's just some random cleanrot knight, not one of the goddesses.
Earthbore cave, in Italian, is hilariously called "Cave of Profundis". The first time i went there i kinda expected to, sometime in the future, find a "Combed Cats Catacomb"
Oh boy! I can't wait to watch a 40 minute video about ranking things in a game i don't even play! My favourite! (This isn't ironic, i love watching these)
i actually love the cave of the forlorn. the atmosphere is amazing, and a love the way it looks and the enemies all being sitting or floating. the visual design and atmosphere is just outstanding and really shows how all of the residents have given up hope.
Stillwater Cave is actually really well put together in terms of environmental storytelling. The mushroom-head enemies are called Servants of Rot > the Sage Set is worn by Gowry refers to himself as part of the "children of the scarlet rot" > the Winged Sword talismans are connected to Millicent, who is the daughter of Malenia > the Cleanrot Knights are Malenia's army.
My theory for the Beastman in the Groveside cave is that he fell down on one of those giant ruin fragments and somehow survived and his being in the cave is our little foreshadowing of what's to come
Im pretty sure that bear was designed to not be fought on purpose so you engage in sneaking in what feels like a scary movie. I found it quite exciting.
So in Dragonbarrow Cave... did... did the Rune Bear with insane stats facing away with a very specific patrol route and with patches of tall grass everywhere NOT tip you off that you're intended to just sneak past it?
I kill it in every run I do lmao. it takes forever and by the time I figured out I was supposed to sneak past it, it had already become a personal tradition of mine to kill it with whatever build Im using that run.
I completely overestimated my sneaking capabilities when going through that cave. That bear spotted me the second I decided to poke my pretty little head out of that bush… or it just saw the massive shock of bright, red hair hanging out of a patch of grass, which just do happened to get illuminated by both a lantern and a torch
The one thing that might make me forgive the second Astel is if instead of him just standing there he does the unused meteor dive animation through the wall at you, which I'm pretty sure isn't even unreasonable since it's by a cliff.
After that loving description of the leather armor I would kill for a video where you talk about more armor like that. Give us the elden ring style page!
The sages cave actually has a second, hidden boss fight you didn't mention, and it happens to be a unique boss fight against a necromancer which def makes the cave a bit more interesting. He drops a named flail called Family Heads with a special AoW, and overall its a pretty cool fight where he uses death sorceries and a summoned spiky skeletal version of the crystal snail that rolls around at you like the DS1 pinwheel bone bois. In classic FromSoft fashion though, the boss fight is hidden behind yet another fake wall in the nook to the right of the chest that has the skeletal mask, and the game gives no indication that there is a second boss in the area so it can be super easy to miss if you see the black knight boss door first and just warp out after. Honestly I was surprised to never see him or a reskin of him for the rest of the game, maybe even FromSoft forgot about him lol. No idea why they stick a unique boss fight tucked away behind layers of hidden walls in some random cave where the average person will never see it, yet only have two models for the Erdtree Avatar when we fight it like 7 times.
14:00 The Bloodhound Knight in the Lakeside Crystal Cave actually makes a lot of sense. He was likely hired by Gideon to track down Latenna, as she is hiding right behind the boss room. Gideon tips you off to her location if you come back after finding the Albinauric Village and getting the first half of the Haligtree medallion there. The Bloodhound Knights are considered traitorous and can likely be hired by crooked individuals such as Gideon.
I keep forgetting how many gosh-darned caves are in this game! Mad props, dude, for how much time you put into this. There's definitely a wide range of pain to be found in these things, and you've managed to perfectly encapsulate them all. Great vid, man!
eh demon's souls 5-2, blighttown, and farron keep are among the best areas in their respective games as they're giant swamps built around the concept while the majority of them are terrible because they feel like a posion swamp was just added to an existing area soely to be more annoying
@@plugshirt1762 Demons souls 5-2 and farron keep are not among the best areas in their respective games. Even blightown despite me liking it wouldnt be in the best either but that one is more subjective
@@ASmartNameForMe bruh I’m out here defending poison swamp levels obviously my tastes vary from other peoples lol. I wouldn’t say any of them are the absolute best though except for ds3 as with demons’s souls 3-1 and 3-2 are vastly superior and with ds1 the depths and dark root garden are also contenders
@@plugshirt1762 Can't comment on Demon's Souls but I definitely agree that each Dark Souls' poison level was one the best areas in each game. Even if DS2's Gutter isn't a swamp it's another poison area that happens to be the game's strongest levels. And Elden Ring has Caelid as one of the coolest regions imo. There's probably something wrong with me.
@@falcoon_f_zero9450 yeah the gutter is definitely up there for ds2 areas though black gulch is pretty terrible as it doesn’t do anything besides throw poison at you. Caelid is pretty amazing though it certainly felt less like a poison level considering how massive it was with only a small portion having rot. The rot lake though was pretty terrible as it didn’t really have any content besides the lake that gives a status effect. Looking back at some of the weaker poison levels it’s pretty evident how hard it would be to do right though the good ones are really good
I went back to watch this for nostalgia, and I realized that the section at around 6:48 has a similar energy to: "Crazy? I was Crazy once. They trapped me in a room. A rubber room. A rubber room with Rats. The rats drove me crazy. Crazy? (You get the idea)"
the invisible black knife fight is my most memorable part of my first run through. Was my first ever black knife fight and got insta killed on my first encounter. Couldn't track well in the water. But I killed the npc who gives you the +7 halberd and stood in the middle swinging it around until the assassin died and it filled me with so much joy
Next time you play save yourself the trouble and buy yourself the sentry's torch off the merchant at the shack outside Leyndell. Then you can see the black knife assassins. And the ones at ordina too
I like Morne tunnel because it shows the enemies not only took over the castle, but also the mine. It showed to me at the beggining that there was something human to these enemies (reinforced it), or that they like shinny things at least lol Gaol Cove is one of the best to me. You see the prison but can't go inside, you are lucky to find the floor breaking. You go through the cages with enemies, find the resting place for the guards. The lever faces directly to the cells, showing what it does, and makes you want to re explore everything again. Then there are guards guarding another section of the cave. You go there and some guards are dead and you see a hidden hole that the guards placed to avoid people going in there. You see a warrior that is corrupted by the root, that killed the guards, and (I think) he was guarding the grave outside. And the grave is at Limgrave which was a nice touch. Not sure if you noticed, but the Perfumer Cave is connected to the cave before, so that huge insect you see is the same from the one from the other cave, that you miss the tree jump at least once.
yelough anix tunnel is one of the only places in the game you can actually find smithing stone 8 before getting the bell bearing. I'll go there in every playthrough just for that alone.
sham-shir (say it like "sham"-"shear"). it's basically translates to sword. the one ingame is staple iranian curved sword. also the reason people struggle with it is cus iranian words have connected letters and depending if it is connected or not you will read that part together or with a pause.
For Stillwater cave (11:58), Millicent is a clone of Malenia, blade of miquella. So the clean rot knight at the end is ties in because he is one of Melenia's knights. That is also why the poison ties in because it is a lesser version of rot.
Totally agree about ruin-strewn precipice. Im glad i decided to go that way on my first playthrough. Super difficult but a really majestic and unforgettable experience
The Runebear was a bane of my existence. I ecnountered it as a farily low level character but I was so hellbent on killing it, I spent like an hour on devising dirty tactics to finally beat it.
I actually really like the Gaol Cave. Genuine nice surprise when I discovered it earlier today without even knowing it existed. The implications of zombies being burned in cages is pretty creepy and the presence of the Vulgar Militia further emphasizes that whatever they're up to, it's some nasty shit. Plus, I'm a sucker for the Duelist bosses. Always found em pretty fun.
I think Earthbore cave is probably very dull for an old Souls hand, but consider it from a newbie's perspective: You find a strange ghost that slowly leads you to the entrance. You go inside, and there's a ch... oh shit, you've fallen through the floor into a nest of rats in the dark! You flail around, but hey if this is like any other game you're just gonna head back up, right? Oh... there's a boss gate here... and it's a giant bear. If you're new to Souls games, and you're low-ish level (as you might be when you head down south), this is definitely a great intro to FromSoft's sense of humour. YMMV :)
I always assumed the Bloodhound in Lakeside was there on behalf of Gideon Ofnir, since they have masters and Gideon was on the search for the Haligtree bitcoin to get to that Rotussy, he even did a dope Cop roleplay and shot Lattena’s dog because she wouldn’t tell him the secret password to the femboy tree, and she of course lives behind that very cave so it’d make sense for Gideon to have a sniffy knight skulking about there still
what the fuck gideon killed her dog??? i did not get that from the dialogue, but i guess he was very keen on finding her, the dipshit. i had a bad feeling about that decrepid old man since i set foot in the roundtable and dude was like "oh yeah you dont belong here" and shit.. 170hours later he was getting a pair of spiked balls up his ass while delivering a audience-less monologue.. fucking dumbass
@@yurilopes420 latenna says something like “another grunt sent by that all knowing brute” and “was taking my other half not enough” which i assume is talking of her dead dog which the lady albins ride cause they don’t got no legs. Also Gideon is def a bad dude beside that too, the stuff in The Albunauric Village Albus is in is his doing as well, that’s why he disowns Axe lady for confronting him about it after you kill his Omen Killer with her.
@@Mi_mcmuffin oh, some dialogue really goes over my head. im not a native english speaker but my english is close to perfect (for years working with foreign companies or with foreign people) but this old english makes me miss shit. "was taking my half not enough" i thought she meant the haligtree half. which kinda didnt make sense because the other dude in liurnia has the first half so idk. but even then, when you do get the first half, enja the dude defending gideon is all hard to fuck you up in the roundable also you're right! i saw nepheli there but also didnt really get her dialogue god damn there's a shit ton of shit that like, i didnt miss, just my small brain doesn't put together. thanks man
Oh the crystal caves are based on a really cool place that was discovered in real life. Naicas cave. And yes in real life they are that massive. Though idk if they are sturdy enough to step on. They were found in this submerged and incredibly hot cave that they pumped for mining reasons. I think there were plans to turn it into a tourist attraction. But it wasn't feasible because of how deep into the ground the place is, and because many parts of the cave are so hot and humid that you have to walk around in a refrigerated suit with a air tank, or overheat and drown.
I played dark souls again recently and it really shows how far elden ring is compared to fromsoft ten years ago. there was hardly any extra areas. we need to be thankful of the diversity and effort that has been put into this game.
Ruin-Strewn Precipice is great because it doesn’t have “Tunnel” or “Cave” in its name! 😂 Technically a minor dungeon but nonetheless I also loved it and was very memorable for me
Fun fact about the Regalia of Eochaid: you don't even need to go through Gaol Cave to get it. There's a way to carefully parkour up the cliff face using Torrent and just barely arrive where the sword is
14:31 Thank GOD I'm not the only one who thought this. On my first playthrough of Elden Ring I went up until I reached the mountaintops of the giants using a +8 weapon, and frankly that hurt.
Don't worry, Rusty. Any kind of jump over a very high gap in a cave just freaks me out to the point where I mess it up at least once, if not three times, too.
Honestly I didn’t even know Highroad Cave existed until after I’d already beaten the entire game and was going through my mission to get the Blue Dancer talisman for a build I was making (it wasn’t a good one in hindsight), but seriously one of my favorite delves in the game.
Playing through the game, fighting naturalborn astel for the first time, it was one of the coolest fights I've ever seen, and then when i found the yelough anix tunnel, it made the whole experience just feel cheapened.
Not sure if it helps but Astels seem to be a species that evolves. The weird bulls are the baby’s, the hanging ones are mid way and the Astel bosses are their final form.
@@harryellis910 oh wow, theres a lore explanation, thing is it sucks and it makes no sense. The other bosses we have actually turn into the exact same eldritch abomination with all the same characteristics (because when has the eldritch ever been abnormal???) Which means this isn't a lore oversight technically, just incredibly poor writing. Like seriously, there is no way they designed a boss as cool and unique as astel, put em at the end of a questline, and then went "yeah, this is a species of eldritch monsters that all look exactly the same with the same scars, body shapes, down to the slightest details, and the come from the rock lizard monsters because as everyone knows, the eldritch come around through completely mundane means"
@@rgddydshevchenko2448 Not sure if i'm understanding your comment correctly, but I don't see what's wrong with them doing that? why is it poor writing to have consistent worldbuilding? There's plenty of repeated bosses that are repeated because multiple exist (tree sentinels, night's cavalry, godskin apostles) in the same way that multiple minor enemies exist. It's fine if you don't like the repetition, but saying it makes no sense because it doesn't live up to your specific interpretation of cosmic horror is a little odd.
@@Jazmunky my issue isnt that its consistent world building, its that its crappy world building. Something like astel is an eldritch horror with an incredibly unique design, which is a boss at the end of an incredibly important questline. Its entire arena is a weird galactic mush. And then its a boss at the end of some random goddamn cave and its handwaved off as "eh, they come from some completely different monster". Imagine if dragonlord placidusax had a clone boss that was red instead of white placed at the end of a random cave and it gets handwaved off as "well actually dragonlords are a species and they come from the omens", sure, it would be consistent, but it would be the most stupid reasoning possible, and it would totally devalue plasidusax. Its exactly what happens to astel
I love pots in the early game. You know what enemies are really weak to pots? Putrid Avatars and Deathrite Birds. Getting 100k+ souls in Dragonbarrow or the Deaths Poker is so much easier thanks to these. Much love. Aww, I love the big runebear! It is possible to sneak past, actually. I try to teach the host how every time I get summoned for this cave. And when I'm by myself, it's a really tough enemy that respawns, which means I love using it to test weapons. If I have fun using a weapon to beat the runebear, I might have a good time using it throughout the midgame. ... Yeah, the only good thing about Abandoned Cave is the Gold Scarab. Which means I make a point to go here the very moment I get a second talisman slot every run, because +20% souls means I beat Elden Beast at level 205 instead of the 155 other people seem to. People sleep on the Gold Scarab. It is very good. Cave sucks though.
Astels are essentially just cosmic bugs and are the final evolutionary form of the little exploding rock piles and rock worms you find around evergaols and various other places. Second form is the Falling Star Beast. I don't know if there's actually any in game item descriptions that reference this being the case, but I think the visual similarities and fact that they all use gravity magic are too significant to ignore.
coastal cave, minimal as it us, really is too good for this game. an attached npc quest line! Hope you don't expect more of that. Two exits vonnecting different areas! Hope you don't expect more of that. A big interesting boss room with multiple bosses and smaller adds that don't all immediately aggro at once so you can make some tactical choices, even utilize a but of stealth, to help divide a potentially overwhelming encounter into manageable chunks! Hope you don't expect more of that! not much treasure, sure, but it's also short & doesn't overstay its welcome.
The worst part of the Dragon Communion altar in Limgrave is that there's a significantly better one in Caelid. You just have to get through Caelid. Sham sheer Rot and poison in Elden Ring(and Dark Souls, excluding Rot) are both representative of still waters in real life. The winged sword insignia itself is not related to Millicent, but Malenia. The Rotten Winged Sword Insignia is similar to the regular one, but I imagine the true insignia is what the Cleanrot Knights are more likely to have, while the rotten ones are related to the Valkyries. How could a Cleanrot Knight be standing in a poison lake? My guess, Malenia is resistant to poison. Maybe her knights are as well.
*puts on dork glasses* well, actually, did you know that in the lore, the sage's cave ties the elder gods to the eldritch gods in Bloodborne that spawned Gwyn. Tying all the games together.
All of Dragonbarrow is considered a late game area. I know, it’s right there next to Caelid, there’s Rot, so everyone lumps it in with Caelid. It’s not. Everything here is scaled somewhere between Farum Azula and Concentrated Snowfields. Of course the Runebear is ridiculous. Consider the Rotten Avatar outside. It has 3 times the health as its cousin down in Caelid.
That baby Astel in Perfumers Grotto is actually the same one as in Altus Tunnel. If you kill it in the Grott you can climb the Tree in the Tunnel without getting pelted by rocks.
Stillwater Cave is poison instead of scarlet rot because Liurnia is supposed to be an early game area. Scarlet Rot is a more dangerous game mechanic than poison - filling an early game area with it would be like having to fight Death as the level 1 boss in Castlevania.
The reason why the Runebear has 18k HP is because while this is technically Caelid, it's actually deep into Dragonbarrow. Caelid (non-Dragonbarrow) is around mid-game (lvl 60+), but Dragonbarrow is end-game (~lvl 120+, managable earlier, but the scaling is actually that high). You can look at it yourself by comparing the Radahn Soliders. The ones in Caelid die quickly by a few hits, but the ones in Divine Tower in Dragonbarrow will take a ton of hits. Also when I was lvl ~90 or so and found that one Bell-bearing hunter he literally two-shots even with good armor, lol.
I refuse to believe a living breathing human being actually uses knife consumables in this game "hmm yes yes bone darts, quite an useful tool when I'm in a pinch" who says that, ever?
bone dart damage scales with strength and dex... for how fast you can throw them, they're very good at finishing off enemies with a pixel of health, and also for chipping away at bosses that are charging up big attacks that you need to stay away from.
The worst part of Gael tunnel is when I'm not paying attention (which is always) and drop myself in it when I'm trying to go to Caelid. Now you have to go all the way through the fucking thing to escape since you can't fast travel from inside.
My goddamn hero. Also i'm generally a big defender of repeat bosses in this game but i do agree about the astel points. That seems a strange boss to reuse in such a seemingly insignificant area.
The Church of Dragon Communion at the end of the Coastal Cave isn't even that important as you can travel to the Cathedral of Dragon Communion in Caelid during the early game, which has more incantations available in addition to what is offered in the Church.
"I have no idea what the lore implications are for how he wound up here, but I know for sure that whatever it is, doesn't make sense." Had me kinda dead ngl-
On my first playthrough, I loved exploring every single cave exclusively because I am in fact a loot goblin, and just wanted more shiny stuff to add to my inventory. Now they suck. I can appreciate the work FromSoft put into them though, all 2 hours.
You probably don't even read these, but my god you are one of the most entertaining Elden Ring creators. Your mods are also incredible. Thank you for the content.
Accidentally cut off the first .5 seconds of the video. Please forgive my lapse in judgment.
Sorry rusty you're cancelled now
How could you make such an error? This is a disappointing occurrence. A lapse in your judgement, indeed.
Nope, you're cancelled.
Do not be sorry, be better
that’s fucked up dude
A fun fact about the cleanrot knight in stillwater cave - the reason he drops the winged sword talisman is because he uses it! all of malenia's cleanrot knights were gifted winged insignias signifying their devotion to her, and you can actually see the attack boost they get from the talisman during gameplay! just a little thing most people wouldn't notice, but it has really fun and interesting lore implications. Classic FromSoft.
Also the reason why the cleanrot knight is there is because Malenia and Co. marched through Liurnia to get at Godrick and Radahn, as explained by the Sword Monument on the eastern road through the zone.
Also Mohg and his Sanguine Nobles have Lord of Blood's Exultation, making them more powerful whenever you or them gets blood loss'd. You can actually see the particle effect on them, too.
I think the only reason we don't typically notice is because if the cleanrot starts wailing on you that hard, you're already dead by the time it procs
man, if you see a Cleanrot with that buff activated, you have messed up and you are in trouble lol
I love how he went on a rant at the end of the video talking about how he doesnt care about lore reasons and people still put comments explaining the lore. Classic FromSoft community at its finest
Honestly I was pretty disappointed with the altering armor. I was expecting to add cool pieces to it that add buff but instead all I got was an Edna Mode needle that said "NO CAPES"
true. it is cool that they change the item description sometimes though
I thought it could've been cool. I wish I could keep the scarf on the drake knight armor and ditch only the weird cape. There are a lot of outfits that have different stylings/scarfs/whatever and it sucks that you have to choose between all or nothing in almost every instance.
I swear to god I thought the same, I died inside when I realized it just removed the capes
Or even changing color would have been nice
100% agree. But given the sheer amount armor and weapons and weapon arts they gave us, i stopped caring about alterations for sure.
The Runebear having almost twice as much hp as Maliketh killed me...
In-game too.
Its because maliketh is very difficult to hit without him returning you to the bonfire first😂
His glass cannon nature is really bad. He dies so fast that not even his DOT damage can make up for it.
He either dies before he can do anything or deletes you in three attacks.
@@leiderhosen7110 this is exactly why I despise that boss fight
Nicely worded
@@leiderhosen7110 I went up against him as my own glass cannon build. Beat the game with 20 vigor as a dual wielding blood samurai. SO much fun tbh
The hanging astel in Old Altus Tunnel is the same one as is in the Perfumer's Grotto. Meaning if you kill it in one, it won't bother you in the other. Neat detail
had to scroll to see if someone pointed this out, breing able to see one cave from another was pretty cool
You're saying like someone would think they are two different mobs, it's just 2 caves that meet up with each other.
@@mondoeamon360it's still a really cool detail regardless. The two seperate caves meeting is a fun way to make them somewhat more interesting
I've seen this exact comment of yours multiple time when rewatching this video and I'm sure I found the grotto on one of my first thorough playthroughs but I was still surprised when I found the Grotto again earlier on my current character lol
13:05
Find the Albinauric woman. She hides in a cave to the west of the Laskyar Ruins which jut from the mist-shrouded lake of Liurnia. She knows the location of the medallion’s counterpart, I am sure.
Foul Tarnished, what do you want? I told the all-hearing brute already that I possess no such medallion. Or have you come to take more from me? Was my other half not enough?
Oh...do you speak true?
So old Albus entrusted his medallion to you.... Then I've no choice. But to trust that this was his dying will.
Let's try again. I'm Latenna. An Albinauric, the same as Old Albus. My apologies for my coarse words earlier. I presumed the worst, seeing that you were another Tarnished, like that all-hearing brute. I hope that you will forgive me.
Not that the lakeside crystal cave itself is special, but it is the cave that leads you to Latenna, which gives it value. The bloodhound knight is there because it was sent by Gideon to try and get info on the haligtree medallion from her
Bloodhound knights are mute, I believe; they would have no possible way to relay information to Gideon. I forget where that's said, but it's a rather important bit of information for this discussion.
What I find more likely is that it instead tried to protect latenna, but her wolf was killed during the battle. I say this because we know Gideon isn't above burning villages and killing albinaurics in search of the Haligtree medallion and likely would resort to torture if he could (the game elaborates in great detail _MANY_ albinauric-exclusive torture methods, so it's at least plausible). It's unlikely that he just noped out of the area without utterly destroying it and killing Latenna.
@@obviouslykaleb7998 or just have him pass on a letter.
Gideon sent Ensha there, and also Ensha ransacked the village of the albinaurics as well btw ( Latenna refers to him as all-hearing brute ) the bloodhound knight is just randomly there lol
@@obviouslykaleb7998 Ensha is also mute, and is Gideon’s vassal
@@zsoltsiro1310 “all hearing” is Gideon. His armor is practically made of ears
"When the best item in a whole-ass cave is pottery..."
That's pretty much the essence of real-life archaeology right there.
Most of the time its just rocks
Pottery is a reason to celebrate.
Bones? OH YEA BABY ITS PARTY TIME WHOO
Gowry's set being in the Stillwater Cave is a hint that warns you he's not what he seems. It's probably poison instead of rot because that'd be too intense for Liurnia, and the only areas with Scarlet Rot have lore explanations for why.
Poison is related to rot because both are bottom feeders, those who worship rot typically worship all forms of decay. Something something rot god like rot?
I mean, the Lake of Rot is right underneath Liurnia, but I do agree on that being a bit intense for the area.
@@sprout7317 Rotted Glintstones are within Raya Lucaria. Coming from the huge one down at the Lake of Rot.
It's colossal in size.
"the only areas with Scarlet Rot have lore explanations for why" - So literally any area in the game can have rot and the fans will come up with some bullshit excuse for it.
@@evanseifert8858 True. That one makes no sense for it to be poison, especially since it's far from the weird poison lake part of Liurnia.
Sure those poison guys are found around the rot lake in Caelid, but they are weird poison guys that exist for reasons in those areas.
3:31 I actually was quite amazed when I found out why the faram azula beastman is down there
Y'know all those ruins around limgrave? Well their architecture doesn't look like anything else in limgrave does it? But it does look familiar... It's parts of faram azula that have fallen down to limgrave from the sky, so add two and two together, ruins from faram azula fell and the beastman came with it
I wonder what the lore behind that one beastman being immune to fall damage or the falling timeout is.
@@superscatboy he discovered zipping before 1.05 came around
@@superscatboy They jumped before it hit the bottom, obviously. I think it would have been cool to see them use the dragon breath incantations then you go "oh they used the incantations to cancel the fall damage" but that would give lore reasons for dumb physics. (Also you give some dragon breath incants fall negation but don't put a goddamn fall canceling gravity spell in? Ok. It is a new magic type with ridiculous lore implications but sure, give something obviously related to it to another unrelated spell type)
but farum azula is nowhere near limgrave.
@@malum9478 the floating remains aren't. But there's traces of it all around Limgrave and Caelid. It was obviously much bigger in the past
One detail I really like is that Altus Tunnel and Perfumer's Grotto actually connect in the middle where the Astel is. Killing him in the Grotto will give you an easier time looting the area in Altus Tunnel. I would have given them both a point for this.
Worth noting that while the Dark Moon Greatsword is slightly technically different from the Moonlight Greatsword cameo, the Golden Order Greatsword is implied to just straight up be the Moonlight Greatsword as it's a corruption of the sword Rennala gives to Radagon as her consort. Ranni is Dark Moon and Rennala is Moonlight.
Ruin Strewn Precipice was so good it felt like I walked in to a Zelda dungeon
Yeah It was really cool.
I thank God it wasn’t a Zelda dungeon or all we would be doing is moving big metal platforms around with a magnet
@@mysteryneophyte you do that in exactly one of them all.
@@nouhorni3229 2
Of note, for the Flamedrake talisman, it prevents most classes with their base kit from being one shot by Agheel's breath attacks. Not incredible, since those do tend to multi hit, but I like that it works out that way.
18:23 - I actually really like this in conjunction with the rest of the level, because it demonstrates that the Gael Tunnel was built and directed to keep out intruders from Limgrave to the west. Presumably, the Redmanes in Fort Gael had a good hold of that whole western stretch of Caelid before it became Dog Country and losing that hold of it is what allows the Tarnished to slip in through the back entrance.
The Redmanes are legitimately fierce unlike how the Godrick and Cuckoo factions have been portrayed to that point, but finding an opportunity to get a leg up on them like that gives the Tarnished the chance they need to take them out and move up in the world.
I think it's really cool that the enemies are placed to look and seem like they're intelligent. FromSoft did so much better with that this time around. From the patrols of the soldiers and even their actual placement in the world feeling like a deliberate choice to the Perfumers and Pages in the capital being placed to look like they're conversing with eachother during down time. It all just feels like it makes sense.
The liurnia to Altus cave is the only time the open world format really shined to me, it truly felt like a connection between the two places that felt organic and like it would be there regardless of if the player character existed. Amazing cave
It may be worth mentioning that while the onyx lord in yelough anix tunnel doesn't drop anything, he is guarding an ancient dragon smithing stone that's right behind him
The sword in Highroad Cave, I pronounced as “Shahm-sheer!”
Also, I find it funny how the Shamshir when wielded by Millicent has the Waterfowl Dance skill equipped, but the only weapon we have which utilizes this skill in the base game is the Hand of Malenia.
Also when millicent uses it it has katana light attacks and the flowing curved sword’s strong attacks
@@pancakke08 I won't lie. I kinda wish the hand of malenia ash of war was her grab attack and waterfowl was a normal ash of war for most normal curved sword types.
@@ChangedCauseYT-HateFoxNames Waterfowl on curved swords makes zero sense though ?? Millicent can use it due to her close ties to Melania, she's also like, very clearly a master swordsman
@@wisp3936 I didn't say curved swords. I said curved like weapons but fair enough. Mastery makes no sense from are perspective considering we can also do the very same attack and we have no ties other then killing malenia.
@@wisp3936 we can use it just fine like every other skill in the game and our only connection to Malenia is putting that sore loser in the ground
I also love the Ruin-Strewn Precipice. The items, the functionality as an alternate path to Altus, the atmosphere, the enemy variety. It feels more like a mini dungeon than just another cave
Cave of the Forlorn is actually one of my favorites, definitely in the top three. I mean, there's a frozen dragon, a FROZEN DRAGON, right there that you can look at to your heart's content to drink in all of the little details that you can't normally notice with it trying to bite your face off and all. How did it wedge itself into this tiny cave? How did it get frozen so suddenly; what kind of meteorological catastrophe happened there? AND THEN. There's the whole second layer under the ice that you can look up or down into and see the other side. How awesome is that? It's just so pretty and almost serene. And then the final boss drops a badass-looking greatsword. But then you look at the greatsword and see, oh, there's some lore attached. Why did Radagon cast it away? How did it end up here? Was this the place Radagon left it at?
I dunno, I just love it. I make sure to visit at least once a playthrough. The rest of the drops are meh and I don't ever really use the greatsword, so it's kinda useless, but I just really dig the atmosphere; it raises so many questions and I love trekking through it while I make up theories about it.
As for the lack of enemy variation, well, it's the Cave of the Forlorn. The misbegotten seem pretty forlorn to me. It's THEIR cave.
This video does a really good job, because it simultaneously makes me want to explore the caves I never went to, while also making me want to avoid them at all costs.
Okay so did you actually want the lore for the caves or nah because honestly they're pretty fun (like the Farum Azula Beastmen probably just... falling out of the sky along with those gigantic chunks of scenery that fell from Farum Azula all over Limgrave, and somehow surviving that fall)
@more like Meli-"nah" This image is great.
@more like Meli-"nah" I'm just imagining an Ash summon of Dick Dale on a lute heralding their arrival.
Farum Azula was likely once located in the lake between the Great Rune Towers. Then when the Elden Beast was sent down it likely caused a flood. Hence the Bestial Sanctum and Liurnia. And after getting a few heada and wings cut or ripped off, Dragonlord Placidusax sealed himself while bringing what remained of Farum Azula up. Further away from the landmass.
Huh, i never realized those ruins are from farum azula
@@asdergold1 and the reason the bridge to godricks great rune is broken is because the tornadoe passed there dumping all the ruins in limgrave no?
Extra information:
1:46 You can also just get the better Tailoring Kit from the Church of Vows and never even need to pick up this inferior one (unless you are doing/want to do Boc's Questline). In addition, the Dragon Communion Church there is completely irrelevant in comparison to the one in Caelid which is not even that hard to get to.
The main unique thing about this Cave that you didn't mention is that there is a summon available before the Boss Gate.
14:07 This Cave opens up to an area with Latenna (the Albinauric Woman Gideon always mentions after you find one of the Haligtree Medallion pieces). You get her as a Spirit Summon if you have a Haligtree Medallion piece on your person. If you complete her Questline, you get a Somber Ancient Dragon Smithing Stone. However, if you arrive to the area with her past the Cave's exit after you've entered the Consecrated Snowfield, she will be dead and you will be locked out of her Questline (you can still get her as a Spirit Summon, though).
20:32 Fun Fact: On release, the boss for this Cave was the Full-Grown variant of the Fallingstar Beast.
32:50 This Cave also leads to the Divine Tower for activating Rykard's Great Rune.
37:00 This Cave also contains an Ancient Dragon Smithing Stone, the amount of Smithing Stone 8s is also pretty good and there's also a Somber Smithing Stone 9. This Cave's Astel also has a unique grab attack.
As someone who played the game day 1, I can tell you that is NOT a fun fact. It is, in fact, a very VERY unfun fact.
I hate the mindless criticism about Astel, Stars of Darkness. As if we don't replay these games for the bosses. It's a good fight and the original is too out-of-the-way, and is clearly repeated because it's not supposed to be a unique entity - making that criticism moot to me. There's a lore reason, not laziness.
@@jackreacher7495 If they didn't want it to be considered lazy, they should have at least had a giant crater or something on the outside, to make it clear that another star had fallen here.
@@CPU9incarnate Did you miss the meteor in his boss room? The existence of the flame of frenzy there? The environmental storytelling?
@@jackreacher7495 It would help if the environment reflected that a gigantic thing fell out of the sky. It looks just like a normal ice cave and the surface is undisturbed.
Beast Champion Armor getting unaltered is actually fantastic. The cape looks great, and the stat improvements leave it in a pretty good spot.
one of the best armour sets for me
i know a lot of people hated these and the catacombs and the other dungeons, but in my playthrough i told myself i wouldn't use any metas or grind, so i spent a ton of time in these small dungeons and had a ton of fun.
When they'd initially said you'd be able to alter armor, I had been so *monumentally* hyped at the prospects for fashion, because I thought you'd be able to change colors at the very least.
Instead, all I got was "cape or no cape." And everyone knows capes are objectively cooler, so why even add the option?
there were some good options like removing the hood on the eccentrics set (i think thats what it is called) so you just get the helmet and the beard which looks really cool.
Roleplaying Edna Mode?
The winged sword insignias are associated with Millicent's questline because Millicent and her questline are related to Malenia. The cleanrot knight is there because Malenia marched her forces through Liurnia on her way to Caelid, which is written about on a nearby sword memorial. There is lots of poison because poison is a lesser type of rot, as stated in the poison mist item description. It's not scarlet rot because it's just some random cleanrot knight, not one of the goddesses.
Patches leaving the Radahn fight for me was one of the most comical things in the game. You summon him, he looks around and just goes "Ah hell no".
Earthbore cave, in Italian, is hilariously called "Cave of Profundis".
The first time i went there i kinda expected to, sometime in the future, find a "Combed Cats Catacomb"
Oh boy! I can't wait to watch a 40 minute video about ranking things in a game i don't even play! My favourite! (This isn't ironic, i love watching these)
Same
Ikr
I think it is ironic, although it may not be sarcastic.
i actually love the cave of the forlorn. the atmosphere is amazing, and a love the way it looks and the enemies all being sitting or floating. the visual design and atmosphere is just outstanding and really shows how all of the residents have given up hope.
Funny how you mention that you’re not going to find Blackreach in Elden Ring when the Siofra River valley is literally ER’s version of Blackreach.
Stillwater Cave is actually really well put together in terms of environmental storytelling. The mushroom-head enemies are called Servants of Rot > the Sage Set is worn by Gowry refers to himself as part of the "children of the scarlet rot" > the Winged Sword talismans are connected to Millicent, who is the daughter of Malenia > the Cleanrot Knights are Malenia's army.
My theory for the Beastman in the Groveside cave is that he fell down on one of those giant ruin fragments and somehow survived and his being in the cave is our little foreshadowing of what's to come
the background footage where you do batshit insane stuff during the intro makes the video wayyyyy better lmao
Im pretty sure that bear was designed to not be fought on purpose so you engage in sneaking in what feels like a scary movie. I found it quite exciting.
So in Dragonbarrow Cave... did... did the Rune Bear with insane stats facing away with a very specific patrol route and with patches of tall grass everywhere NOT tip you off that you're intended to just sneak past it?
I kill it in every run I do lmao. it takes forever and by the time I figured out I was supposed to sneak past it, it had already become a personal tradition of mine to kill it with whatever build Im using that run.
Wtf is sneak? I have a massive hammer and that bear looks like a massive nail
Except it aggroes anyway
@@glorytoukraine5524 No, it doesn't. I've never seen that bear get aggroed. You just let it move away on its own.
I completely overestimated my sneaking capabilities when going through that cave. That bear spotted me the second I decided to poke my pretty little head out of that bush… or it just saw the massive shock of bright, red hair hanging out of a patch of grass, which just do happened to get illuminated by both a lantern and a torch
The one thing that might make me forgive the second Astel is if instead of him just standing there he does the unused meteor dive animation through the wall at you, which I'm pretty sure isn't even unreasonable since it's by a cliff.
After that loving description of the leather armor I would kill for a video where you talk about more armor like that. Give us the elden ring style page!
The sages cave actually has a second, hidden boss fight you didn't mention, and it happens to be a unique boss fight against a necromancer which def makes the cave a bit more interesting. He drops a named flail called Family Heads with a special AoW, and overall its a pretty cool fight where he uses death sorceries and a summoned spiky skeletal version of the crystal snail that rolls around at you like the DS1 pinwheel bone bois.
In classic FromSoft fashion though, the boss fight is hidden behind yet another fake wall in the nook to the right of the chest that has the skeletal mask, and the game gives no indication that there is a second boss in the area so it can be super easy to miss if you see the black knight boss door first and just warp out after. Honestly I was surprised to never see him or a reskin of him for the rest of the game, maybe even FromSoft forgot about him lol.
No idea why they stick a unique boss fight tucked away behind layers of hidden walls in some random cave where the average person will never see it, yet only have two models for the Erdtree Avatar when we fight it like 7 times.
You can see him getting the Family Heads for a bit while he's exploring the cave, though he doesn't draw attention to it.
14:00 The Bloodhound Knight in the Lakeside Crystal Cave actually makes a lot of sense.
He was likely hired by Gideon to track down Latenna, as she is hiding right behind the boss room. Gideon tips you off to her location if you come back after finding the Albinauric Village and getting the first half of the Haligtree medallion there. The Bloodhound Knights are considered traitorous and can likely be hired by crooked individuals such as Gideon.
Bloodhound Knights aren't really treacherous, they are fiercely loyal to their masters. Darriwil is the only BH knight that is said to be a traitor
Everything was right until the traitorous part. Bloodhound knights are second to none in loyalty.
@@ChangedCauseYT-HateFoxNames eh whatever, the important part is that he's likely here because Gideon sent him there
I keep forgetting how many gosh-darned caves are in this game! Mad props, dude, for how much time you put into this. There's definitely a wide range of pain to be found in these things, and you've managed to perfectly encapsulate them all. Great vid, man!
12:57 I'm pretty sure Miyazaki has said how much he loves to put poison swamps in his games, despite the fact they're everyone's least favorite areas.
eh demon's souls 5-2, blighttown, and farron keep are among the best areas in their respective games as they're giant swamps built around the concept while the majority of them are terrible because they feel like a posion swamp was just added to an existing area soely to be more annoying
@@plugshirt1762 Demons souls 5-2 and farron keep are not among the best areas in their respective games. Even blightown despite me liking it wouldnt be in the best either but that one is more subjective
@@ASmartNameForMe bruh I’m out here defending poison swamp levels obviously my tastes vary from other peoples lol. I wouldn’t say any of them are the absolute best though except for ds3 as with demons’s souls 3-1 and 3-2 are vastly superior and with ds1 the depths and dark root garden are also contenders
@@plugshirt1762 Can't comment on Demon's Souls but I definitely agree that each Dark Souls' poison level was one the best areas in each game. Even if DS2's Gutter isn't a swamp it's another poison area that happens to be the game's strongest levels. And Elden Ring has Caelid as one of the coolest regions imo. There's probably something wrong with me.
@@falcoon_f_zero9450 yeah the gutter is definitely up there for ds2 areas though black gulch is pretty terrible as it doesn’t do anything besides throw poison at you. Caelid is pretty amazing though it certainly felt less like a poison level considering how massive it was with only a small portion having rot. The rot lake though was pretty terrible as it didn’t really have any content besides the lake that gives a status effect. Looking back at some of the weaker poison levels it’s pretty evident how hard it would be to do right though the good ones are really good
I went back to watch this for nostalgia, and I realized that the section at around 6:48 has a similar energy to:
"Crazy? I was Crazy once. They trapped me in a room. A rubber room. A rubber room with Rats. The rats drove me crazy. Crazy? (You get the idea)"
Quality content man...
Great video. I remembered you were the one who brought attention to Waves of Darkness not working. I was so happy when they fixed it
the invisible black knife fight is my most memorable part of my first run through. Was my first ever black knife fight and got insta killed on my first encounter. Couldn't track well in the water.
But I killed the npc who gives you the +7 halberd and stood in the middle swinging it around until the assassin died and it filled me with so much joy
Next time you play save yourself the trouble and buy yourself the sentry's torch off the merchant at the shack outside Leyndell. Then you can see the black knife assassins. And the ones at ordina too
I like Morne tunnel because it shows the enemies not only took over the castle, but also the mine.
It showed to me at the beggining that there was something human to these enemies (reinforced it), or that they like shinny things at least lol
Gaol Cove is one of the best to me. You see the prison but can't go inside, you are lucky to find the floor breaking. You go through the cages with enemies, find the resting place for the guards. The lever faces directly to the cells, showing what it does, and makes you want to re explore everything again.
Then there are guards guarding another section of the cave. You go there and some guards are dead and you see a hidden hole that the guards placed to avoid people going in there. You see a warrior that is corrupted by the root, that killed the guards, and (I think) he was guarding the grave outside. And the grave is at Limgrave which was a nice touch.
Not sure if you noticed, but the Perfumer Cave is connected to the cave before, so that huge insect you see is the same from the one from the other cave, that you miss the tree jump at least once.
yelough anix tunnel is one of the only places in the game you can actually find smithing stone 8 before getting the bell bearing. I'll go there in every playthrough just for that alone.
There's also +9 somber and an ancient dragon I feel like gets glossed over
sham-shir (say it like "sham"-"shear"). it's basically translates to sword. the one ingame is staple iranian curved sword. also the reason people struggle with it is cus iranian words have connected letters and depending if it is connected or not you will read that part together or with a pause.
For Stillwater cave (11:58), Millicent is a clone of Malenia, blade of miquella. So the clean rot knight at the end is ties in because he is one of Melenia's knights. That is also why the poison ties in because it is a lesser version of rot.
Totally agree about ruin-strewn precipice. Im glad i decided to go that way on my first playthrough. Super difficult but a really majestic and unforgettable experience
“Grab a beer, maybe some Cheetos or even a blanket”
Me, with a beer and Cheetos, laying on the couch with a blanket: 😳😳😳
The Runebear was a bane of my existence. I ecnountered it as a farily low level character but I was so hellbent on killing it, I spent like an hour on devising dirty tactics to finally beat it.
I actually really like the Gaol Cave. Genuine nice surprise when I discovered it earlier today without even knowing it existed. The implications of zombies being burned in cages is pretty creepy and the presence of the Vulgar Militia further emphasizes that whatever they're up to, it's some nasty shit.
Plus, I'm a sucker for the Duelist bosses. Always found em pretty fun.
I think Earthbore cave is probably very dull for an old Souls hand, but consider it from a newbie's perspective: You find a strange ghost that slowly leads you to the entrance. You go inside, and there's a ch... oh shit, you've fallen through the floor into a nest of rats in the dark! You flail around, but hey if this is like any other game you're just gonna head back up, right? Oh... there's a boss gate here... and it's a giant bear.
If you're new to Souls games, and you're low-ish level (as you might be when you head down south), this is definitely a great intro to FromSoft's sense of humour. YMMV :)
I always assumed the Bloodhound in Lakeside was there on behalf of Gideon Ofnir, since they have masters and Gideon was on the search for the Haligtree bitcoin to get to that Rotussy, he even did a dope Cop roleplay and shot Lattena’s dog because she wouldn’t tell him the secret password to the femboy tree, and she of course lives behind that very cave so it’d make sense for Gideon to have a sniffy knight skulking about there still
what the fuck
gideon killed her dog??? i did not get that from the dialogue, but i guess he was very keen on finding her, the dipshit. i had a bad feeling about that decrepid old man since i set foot in the roundtable and dude was like "oh yeah you dont belong here" and shit..
170hours later he was getting a pair of spiked balls up his ass while delivering a audience-less monologue.. fucking dumbass
@@yurilopes420 latenna says something like “another grunt sent by that all knowing brute” and “was taking my other half not enough” which i assume is talking of her dead dog which the lady albins ride cause they don’t got no legs.
Also Gideon is def a bad dude beside that too, the stuff in The Albunauric Village Albus is in is his doing as well, that’s why he disowns Axe lady for confronting him about it after you kill his Omen Killer with her.
@@Mi_mcmuffin oh, some dialogue really goes over my head. im not a native english speaker but my english is close to perfect (for years working with foreign companies or with foreign people) but this old english makes me miss shit.
"was taking my half not enough" i thought she meant the haligtree half. which kinda didnt make sense because the other dude in liurnia has the first half so idk. but even then, when you do get the first half, enja the dude defending gideon is all hard to fuck you up in the roundable
also you're right! i saw nepheli there but also didnt really get her dialogue
god damn there's a shit ton of shit that like, i didnt miss, just my small brain doesn't put together. thanks man
Oh the crystal caves are based on a really cool place that was discovered in real life. Naicas cave. And yes in real life they are that massive.
Though idk if they are sturdy enough to step on.
They were found in this submerged and incredibly hot cave that they pumped for mining reasons.
I think there were plans to turn it into a tourist attraction. But it wasn't feasible because of how deep into the ground the place is, and because many parts of the cave are so hot and humid that you have to walk around in a refrigerated suit with a air tank, or overheat and drown.
I played dark souls again recently and it really shows how far elden ring is compared to fromsoft ten years ago. there was hardly any extra areas. we need to be thankful of the diversity and effort that has been put into this game.
Thing is tho I would say the focused design of DS1 is more enjoyable for me.
I don’t even play elden ring anymore but I like watching these
Sameee😂
I appreciated your fond summary of the ruin-strewn precipice
Beastman of Faram Azula likely fell from the sky with the other ruins of Faram Azula that are right next to the cave. It always makes sense with From.
Thing is farum azula is 100 of miles ahead of limgrave and how tf is a furry guy survived that high of a fall
Ruin-Strewn Precipice is great because it doesn’t have “Tunnel” or “Cave” in its name! 😂 Technically a minor dungeon but nonetheless I also loved it and was very memorable for me
Fun fact about the Regalia of Eochaid: you don't even need to go through Gaol Cave to get it. There's a way to carefully parkour up the cliff face using Torrent and just barely arrive where the sword is
26:50 did you not find the secret boss in Sage’s Cave?
14:31 Thank GOD I'm not the only one who thought this. On my first playthrough of Elden Ring I went up until I reached the mountaintops of the giants using a +8 weapon, and frankly that hurt.
Don't worry, Rusty. Any kind of jump over a very high gap in a cave just freaks me out to the point where I mess it up at least once, if not three times, too.
Highroad Cave was actually the first cave I encountered in the game, surprisingly
Honestly I didn’t even know Highroad Cave existed until after I’d already beaten the entire game and was going through my mission to get the Blue Dancer talisman for a build I was making (it wasn’t a good one in hindsight), but seriously one of my favorite delves in the game.
i particularly like the first cave, because i love the dragon incantations and you can acces them quite early in the game
Rusty delivers, I've been asking for this in every comment section
The ruin strewn precipice area is in my top 5 areas of the game. Don't know why I just love it
Playing through the game, fighting naturalborn astel for the first time, it was one of the coolest fights I've ever seen, and then when i found the yelough anix tunnel, it made the whole experience just feel cheapened.
Not sure if it helps but Astels seem to be a species that evolves. The weird bulls are the baby’s, the hanging ones are mid way and the Astel bosses are their final form.
@@harryellis910 oh wow, theres a lore explanation, thing is it sucks and it makes no sense. The other bosses we have actually turn into the exact same eldritch abomination with all the same characteristics (because when has the eldritch ever been abnormal???) Which means this isn't a lore oversight technically, just incredibly poor writing. Like seriously, there is no way they designed a boss as cool and unique as astel, put em at the end of a questline, and then went "yeah, this is a species of eldritch monsters that all look exactly the same with the same scars, body shapes, down to the slightest details, and the come from the rock lizard monsters because as everyone knows, the eldritch come around through completely mundane means"
@@rgddydshevchenko2448 Not sure if i'm understanding your comment correctly, but I don't see what's wrong with them doing that? why is it poor writing to have consistent worldbuilding? There's plenty of repeated bosses that are repeated because multiple exist (tree sentinels, night's cavalry, godskin apostles) in the same way that multiple minor enemies exist. It's fine if you don't like the repetition, but saying it makes no sense because it doesn't live up to your specific interpretation of cosmic horror is a little odd.
@@Jazmunky my issue isnt that its consistent world building, its that its crappy world building. Something like astel is an eldritch horror with an incredibly unique design, which is a boss at the end of an incredibly important questline. Its entire arena is a weird galactic mush. And then its a boss at the end of some random goddamn cave and its handwaved off as "eh, they come from some completely different monster".
Imagine if dragonlord placidusax had a clone boss that was red instead of white placed at the end of a random cave and it gets handwaved off as "well actually dragonlords are a species and they come from the omens", sure, it would be consistent, but it would be the most stupid reasoning possible, and it would totally devalue plasidusax. Its exactly what happens to astel
The boss recycling in Elden Ring really killed the immersion for me. Huge disappointment.
Rusty ahead
in short, good content
I love pots in the early game. You know what enemies are really weak to pots? Putrid Avatars and Deathrite Birds. Getting 100k+ souls in Dragonbarrow or the Deaths Poker is so much easier thanks to these. Much love.
Aww, I love the big runebear! It is possible to sneak past, actually. I try to teach the host how every time I get summoned for this cave.
And when I'm by myself, it's a really tough enemy that respawns, which means I love using it to test weapons. If I have fun using a weapon to beat the runebear, I might have a good time using it throughout the midgame.
... Yeah, the only good thing about Abandoned Cave is the Gold Scarab. Which means I make a point to go here the very moment I get a second talisman slot every run, because +20% souls means I beat Elden Beast at level 205 instead of the 155 other people seem to. People sleep on the Gold Scarab. It is very good. Cave sucks though.
Astels are essentially just cosmic bugs and are the final evolutionary form of the little exploding rock piles and rock worms you find around evergaols and various other places. Second form is the Falling Star Beast. I don't know if there's actually any in game item descriptions that reference this being the case, but I think the visual similarities and fact that they all use gravity magic are too significant to ignore.
coastal cave, minimal as it us, really is too good for this game. an attached npc quest line! Hope you don't expect more of that. Two exits vonnecting different areas! Hope you don't expect more of that. A big interesting boss room with multiple bosses and smaller adds that don't all immediately aggro at once so you can make some tactical choices, even utilize a but of stealth, to help divide a potentially overwhelming encounter into manageable chunks! Hope you don't expect more of that!
not much treasure, sure, but it's also short & doesn't overstay its welcome.
BOC IS BEST BOI
The worst part of the Dragon Communion altar in Limgrave is that there's a significantly better one in Caelid.
You just have to get through Caelid.
Sham sheer
Rot and poison in Elden Ring(and Dark Souls, excluding Rot) are both representative of still waters in real life. The winged sword insignia itself is not related to Millicent, but Malenia. The Rotten Winged Sword Insignia is similar to the regular one, but I imagine the true insignia is what the Cleanrot Knights are more likely to have, while the rotten ones are related to the Valkyries. How could a Cleanrot Knight be standing in a poison lake? My guess, Malenia is resistant to poison. Maybe her knights are as well.
The cleanrot knights are not resistant to poison, they're just rotted like Radahn because they simped too hard for Malenia.
I feel like "caves" and "tunnels" are pretty different styles of dungeon, both in thematics, drops, and whether or not they can be seen on the map
Really wished you showed where each one was on map, Rusty! Great video (like always) elsewise tho
Your content is always a treat to watch, keep up the good work man
*puts on dork glasses* well, actually, did you know that in the lore, the sage's cave ties the elder gods to the eldritch gods in Bloodborne that spawned Gwyn. Tying all the games together.
All of Dragonbarrow is considered a late game area. I know, it’s right there next to Caelid, there’s Rot, so everyone lumps it in with Caelid. It’s not. Everything here is scaled somewhere between Farum Azula and Concentrated Snowfields. Of course the Runebear is ridiculous. Consider the Rotten Avatar outside. It has 3 times the health as its cousin down in Caelid.
That baby Astel in Perfumers Grotto is actually the same one as in Altus Tunnel. If you kill it in the Grott you can climb the Tree in the Tunnel without getting pelted by rocks.
"-1 to -10 based on how shit they are"
Honestly couldn't have said it any better good job
Every time I read one of your titles I'm like "oh no".
Rusty, you become more relatable with every video. Thank you for feeling like a real person
Stillwater Cave is poison instead of scarlet rot because Liurnia is supposed to be an early game area. Scarlet Rot is a more dangerous game mechanic than poison - filling an early game area with it would be like having to fight Death as the level 1 boss in Castlevania.
Stillwater cave+those who know💀
I'm so upset you didn't give the 3 rotted crystallian cave a -100 because that fight gave me night terrors
The reason why the Runebear has 18k HP is because while this is technically Caelid, it's actually deep into Dragonbarrow. Caelid (non-Dragonbarrow) is around mid-game (lvl 60+), but Dragonbarrow is end-game (~lvl 120+, managable earlier, but the scaling is actually that high).
You can look at it yourself by comparing the Radahn Soliders. The ones in Caelid die quickly by a few hits, but the ones in Divine Tower in Dragonbarrow will take a ton of hits.
Also when I was lvl ~90 or so and found that one Bell-bearing hunter he literally two-shots even with good armor, lol.
I refuse to believe a living breathing human being actually uses knife consumables in this game "hmm yes yes bone darts, quite an useful tool when I'm in a pinch" who says that, ever?
bone dart damage scales with strength and dex... for how fast you can throw them, they're very good at finishing off enemies with a pixel of health, and also for chipping away at bosses that are charging up big attacks that you need to stay away from.
The worst part of Gael tunnel is when I'm not paying attention (which is always) and drop myself in it when I'm trying to go to Caelid. Now you have to go all the way through the fucking thing to escape since you can't fast travel from inside.
Just beat the boss
RUSTY GIVE ME YOUR CHARACTER SLIDERSSSSS😭😭😭
I love Rusty’s spastic, sped up swinging in the background of a quarter of the shots in the video.
My goddamn hero. Also i'm generally a big defender of repeat bosses in this game but i do agree about the astel points. That seems a strange boss to reuse in such a seemingly insignificant area.
The Church of Dragon Communion at the end of the Coastal Cave isn't even that important as you can travel to the Cathedral of Dragon Communion in Caelid during the early game, which has more incantations available in addition to what is offered in the Church.
"I have no idea what the lore implications are for how he wound up here, but I know for sure that whatever it is, doesn't make sense."
Had me kinda dead ngl-
I like how every cave he's swapped his form of light xD was a bigger change then some of the caves
On my first playthrough, I loved exploring every single cave exclusively because I am in fact a loot goblin, and just wanted more shiny stuff to add to my inventory. Now they suck. I can appreciate the work FromSoft put into them though, all 2 hours.
You probably don't even read these, but my god you are one of the most entertaining Elden Ring creators. Your mods are also incredible. Thank you for the content.