I must have died more than enough times by Astel's "Grab Attack", it frustrated and infuriated me to a great extent. I had no idea it was some kind of "hidden" or uncommon attack, he did it to me every time I went up against him, this is the stuff of nightmares since it is a one-shot as well.
@@joeberns9668 False, it's just a random attack that can happen at any time when he's low on hp. He might teleport away and instantly activate it, and there's no counter play. It's luck-based, not a "check". It's possible to dodge with good timing, though.
@@david5310 I've killed the boss probably 20+ times now, and on many of the kills (and attempts) he didn't do the attack, even on low HP. But it does seem like he can only use it when under approx. 30% hp.
There's a good secret I discovered recently. Following D's questline, you can give his brother the armor set. If you do, his stance is different while wearing the armor, and it looks like his upper half is always leaning back, kind of unnaturally. What's actually happening is that the silver part of the armor is dominant now instead of the gold part of the armor. If you get a good look at D's brother wearing the armor (best at the very end of Fia's quest) you can get a really good look at how the silver armor is holding up and supporting the gold armor, just like how D was holding up and supporting the silver head of the armor when he was wearing it.
Woah. Great find! Thank you for sharing. Any idea if the portion of the armor the player character occupies is also adjusted accordingly once completing the questline and retrieving the armor set again?
I'm surprised more didn't know about this. Anyways, From's details in npc character differences in development with this type, armors and the like, is just
The Astel Line having such variation is really cool! one of the biggest advantages of having youre babies be SO different to the adults is no longer compete for resources with your own young. And thats really easy to see here! it looks like the young Astels are grounded, live above land and are very rocky (probably for protection, since they havent developed their big boy magic powers) while post pupation they move underground, gain wings and honestly just look super freaking cool
What's funny is a Full Grown Fallingstar Beast would wipe the floor with Astel, Naturalborn of the Void. Literally better build, tougher (more HP/armor), more adaptable than the "mature" form. Considered one of the tougher bosses in the game by many.
I wonder if the original idea for the attack where the nearly fully grown astel throws rocks at you was to have them throw bits of their rocky pupal shell
A lot of people were upset about the astel duplicate, but it’s good there’s a legit reason behind it. Astel is a race, not an individual. Unlike mr godefroy.
The narrative structure, the calm voice, transitions, footages... bro you really did an amazing job. Congrats! And no doubt Elden Ring is the game of the year.
I ‘solved’ the “may erudition light the way!” puzzle in the most perfect storm of events possible. I had read it, and somewhere in my brain I went; “that sounds like the name of a gesture, let me check my list”. I didn’t find anything, so my brain went to the “light” part, and I remembered Thops sold the cast light sorcery, so I went to buy that to see if that did anything. Turns out, I had the glintstone key he wanted, so I dropped it off while I way buying the spell. Lo and behold, I got a gesture titled “erudition”. “Cool!” I thought, “maybe I do have to use this gesture, but with the cast light spell active.” So I went back, but I didn’t have the INT for cast light, due to running a faith build. Easy fix, popped on the twinsage crown for the extra INT. Cue my surprised ass when the crown lit up and the door opened. It was then that I realized, a lot of these secrets/puzzles that are super weird, are solved by sheer dumb luck that just so happens to discover the solution.
its funny i did the same but only because when i saw erudition i thought "i wonder if the mage hats react with it" and saw them light up nicely, did it with each one including haima to see if it had anything unique and was very disappointed all it did was make me look like a tree.
I had a very similar experience. I just happened to be wearing the crown for the extra int in order to use cast light, because I thought that would have something to do with it. Probably the coolest thing I found considering I didn't look anything up throughout my playthrough.
I just had a thought about Patches during Radahn's fight. I know it's hilarious and well in-theme for him to desert the fight and run when he sees how dangerous Radahn is... but what if he's using the festival as an excuse to collect valuables on the battlefield? The battlefield is well-known to have the bodies of many powerful warriors. Maybe he's not there to fight Radahn, but to restock his wares?
someone needs to find out if summoning him the max amount of times adds stuff to his inventory, or adds new dialogue. That would be pretty cool if it does.
*Alexander:* Ah, hello there, fellow warrior! Truly, that was a wonderful battle, but I doubt I need to say any more. After all, from the looks of things, you were there as well. *Patches:* ... yeah, totally *Alexander:* Indeed, a true warrior to the end! I suppose you're here for the same purpose as me? *Patches:* I guess? *Alexander:* Why, it was no guess! You are obviously-- *Patches:* (visibly starts sweating) *Alexander:* Here to study the feats of the past festival participants, glean the secrets from their fighting styles and armaments! Truly, a student of the combat arts. *Patches:* ...that is exactly what I'm doing. Complete respect for the dead, mo ulterior motives whatsoever.
It actually makes sense for Jerren to wait to enter until Radahn is almost dead. He would want to honor his former boss by joining in the festival, but if the festival fails and Radahn survives, someone has to be around to find fighters for the next festival. If Jerren runs in the first round and dies, but then everyone else dies with him, there's no one left to try again.
Slight correction for the Cinquedea 6:03 The reason it's called Cinquedea or Five Fingers is because the width of the blade past the guard is roughly five fingers wide.
In addition to triggering illusory walls, the shackle items can also be used to trigger dungeon trap pillars from a safe distance, making that one hero grave with 3 chariots much easier.
Really cool aspect I found the other day is it will also trigger all the magic traps in the area if there are some. The ones that shoot from the ground with the funny symbol.
I thought that grab attack was common , took me over 35ish try’s to beat Astel . For some reason I was getting anxiety throughout the fight and whenever it disappeared I would panic. Roll at the wrong time, get caught and insta killed. It’s just a really unsettling boss design like an eldritch being beyond our understanding. I was shooketh
@@scienceme9794 Same here, I'd be doing so well then my summon gets nuked as he hits about 10-5% and he teleports and grabs me as the teleport breaks your lock on and makes timing so harrrd
6:00 Small correction: 5 fingers actually refers to the width of the blade (at the guard), not the number of fingers required to grip it. The visual of the Elden Ring version actually shows this which is cool.
That grab attack is the single most terrifying moment I had in my whole playthrough, the fact that there were multiple Astel and the way how they were dark like shadows made that instant kill even more of a bigger impact.
@@kingofnara its insane to me that these are considered rare. in my first playthrough astel went for that grab attack every single time i fought him. its soo hard to dodge too
7:48 one other way to remove rot or poison once you've rolled in it, is if you've rolled on it in such a way that only your armor has been splattered, but not your skin, you can simply remove the soiled armor and the rot/poison stops building up on you!
Something I've incredibly curious about is the Eclipse. In castle sol, it's implied that the eclipe could possibly undo death itself, restoring the souls to the undead. It fails, but the mere idea that death or souls is somehow connected to sun and moon is interesting, especially considering how one of the biggest themes of Elden Ring is Regression. Two gods regressing into one, two celestial bodies doing he same
i like to think of Godwyn as the champion of the sun, like how Rennala is the champion of the moon. Since the eclipse shottle does deathblight buildup and with Godwyn being the son of marika, it seems like maybe hed have some goals in relation to destined death. of course this doesn't explain why an eclipse? but idk i thought maybe eclipse was metaphorical, or itll come up in DLC? anyways, random speculation
Actually I'm not sure if eclipse in the Lands Between happens by the moon covering the sun. The eclipsed sun is specifically said to be a guardian star of soulless demigods, and every reference to the eclipse calls it "the sun devoured and drained of color", with no mention of the moon's movement.
Cinquedea is also what Gurranq wields and is the blade that Maliketh plunges into the seal he placed to contain the rune of death. It makes sense that the blade boosts bestial incantations seeing as how he has progenerated them.
10:25 I don't know, if this is already known, but this is an observation I have made about the feathers on notes: - Light gray feathers have always info on how to deal with enemy type - Dark gray feather has info on how to exploit magic type (Gravity's advantage) - Grayish blue feathers lead you to obtain something (Physick + Sorcery) (+ _unobtainable note_ -> armaments) - Pure white feathers warn and help you against evil (frenzy and cursed enemies) - Colorful feathers tell you how to get to hard to get into places and locations - Yellow seems to be for Leyndell I don't know if it has any merit to it, but I think these feathers may have more to them then just "finishing touch". It may tell us something about personalities of these merchants. For example, one having pure white feathers might be a cleric of sorts.
if you look at sekiro dubi's channel, he's restored Kalé's quest line, and there it's alluded to that the merchants use messenger birds, with different color feathers representing the merchant who sent the message, almost like a signature!
An interesting thing about the Falling Star Beasts and Astels are the eyes (at least I think they're eyes) beneath their skulls. The Astels' designs are clearly reminiscent of Bloodborne, but that detail really reminds me of how Insight worked in that world. It allowed you to gain 'eyes on the inside' and eventually ascend to a Great One.
@@somebodyekkee Astel is one letter removed from Aster, or star. Given the awkwardly named "Natural-born of the Void" as some sort of title, I think an alternate translation could easily be "Spawn of the Void", or fully, "Star-Spawn of the Void". Definitely evokes that Lovecraftian vibe.
I can't wait to see how they incorporate the stars/outer gods/falling star beasts into the DLC. I want to be able to go the moon and fight some fully developed space alien monsters.
Yes! I wanna go to the moon so bad, my theory is that the dlc could be a boss rush on the moon where enemies of the greater will are imprisoned. So other things like the twinbird and gloam eyed queen could be there too!
Imagine person like me who still haven't even touched the game. Probably it's going to take years for me to have the same amount of experience until the end that you got the first time. And I'm still not buying the game for the next at least three months for sure and actually we're still in the first half year
I think we’re going to get a dlc based on the ice witch. The fact that the ice witch looks like Melina and shares the same eye seal is a mystery that I think needs an answer, particularly because Melina is still such a mystery to us. I also suspect the ice witch is Torrent’s former master that Ranni speaks of. Ranni studied ice magic under her and is connected to the dark moon, meaning the ice witch must also logically be connected to it. We might not literally go to the moon. I kind of hope we don’t in some ways because I don’t know how that would look, just plopped onto a barren, lifeless moon with some bosses or something. I do think we’re going to get an ice/night themed dlc in the future based on the mysteries that are left and previous dlc’s in past games, though. DS2&3 both had dlc’s that featured ice in the themes and environment. Ice/night also play larger rolls in this game than the previous games, and in my experience is one of the strongest elements in the game. I also think we’ll get a helphen dlc, or one based around Miquella, as he’s in a larval form currently and is the only shard bearer we can’t fight as of yet.
Astel, Stars of Darkness not only has that unique ‘clone grab’ but is also the only version of Astel to use the full OST. I think it’s supposed to be the original Astel, the one that destroyed an Eternal City. That would also explain why there are ghosts of Dragonkin Soldiers near the Yelough Anix Tunnel.
He's clearly the stronger one Idky people get angry that there's 2 Astels Lore explained Radahn was keeping the stars for bringing more of them here so it makes alot of sense for there to be more than 1.
There's also the "despawn" strategy that works on Radahn. At the start of the fight immediately mount Torrent and ride backwards until Radahn's figure disappears from the screen. Take some time to buff and do whatever and then ride forward and you will see that Radahn is shooting at something in the distance. He will then put down his bow, take out his swords and charge straight towards you, allowing you to skip his bow phase
Addendum for the Patches summon during the Radahn fight: he's got 4 summon signs, but can only be summoned once. As soon as you use one the others disappear.
@@winspyy Think they meant that Patches can only be summoned once for the entire fight. There are multiple areas you can summon him, but unlike the other characters you cannot call him back once he leaves.
He can also sometimes actually attack Radahn, but only a single strike, and only if Radahn is essentially on top of him once he forms, causing his peace out animation to be interrupted. I've had it happen twice.
Is that new? I haven't played in a while but when I fought Radahn I was able to summon Patches twice in one run. He noped out both times without even trying to attack. But that could have also been a bug so...
Vaati, do you think there is any lore reasoning for certain upgrade materials being related to sadness? “Somber” smithing stones and Tears for the flasks?
Good one, but I am afraid that there is an stupid amount of layers in every single item that it will take a lot to uncover everything and every meaning,but maybe it is something. Also notice that Morne region, with Irina and all is the same as ds3 Morne with an Irina, the weeping peninsula (don't know if it's like this I don't play it in English so I may be wrong)
It may be unintentional in the case of the stones, since their descriptions clarify that "somber" is referring to their muted color compared to normal stones. With the flasks of tears, the sacred tears to upgrade them, and the crystal tears for physicks it's all explicitly a reference to sacred dew that the Erdtree shed like tears, though
About Melina cutscene - I got her inviting me to the Roundtable Hold without even entering Stormveil Castle. Basically, got chest trap teleported from lake ruins (where the first dragon is) into cave in Caelid, ran out of it, found site of grace - and there she was, all apologetic and inviting
Fun thing about the Erudition secret, players left messages making said gesture while wearing the glintstone helmets. Thanks to them I was able to solve the puzzle, moments like that are why I love the Souls games and community.
Same! I think I even used one of those craftable items that reveals more messages in the world and then found a helpful message like you described. Small but useful game mechanics. :)
I figured it out without hints because I had just picked up the Erudition emote, and I like emotes so I actively remembered what it referenced. I wouldn't have got the headpiece if I weren't going for a giantdad character though....
How do you make a message say that? All I can think of is “try helmet, then try gesture” or something, but that isn’t nearly specific enough to tell people what to wear. I figured out the gesture on my own, but not the helmet, I don’t see how you’re supposed to understand that without looking it up.
One of the two towers that require this method to unlock can actually be circumvented by climbing the wall outside and jumping on the balcony using Torrent.
I actually used that method to beat Radahn my first time. One because he was hard for me, yeah, but also because it felt so fitting that the fight would be this massive battle with a boat load of NPCs. I'd make sure to specifically find the finger maiden last so that I could join her in buffing/healing allies as they fight, but I'd also try to help attack too so that I wasn't just freeloading. I didn't realize how important vigor was on my first run, so I was getting 1/2 shot quite a bit, which made me feel it was fair that I was using so many npc's.
@@alvarosanchez8470 Once I found that out that fight became a lot easier. For the other fight I just make sure I have enough hp to survive it by equipping that great rune that gives a lot of hp, and drinking as soon as I see him disappear if I am not at full health followed by roll spam for a potential lucky dodge :) Both fights are basically "can you survive the grab?"
Another theory presented about astels that i enjoyed is that by virtue of them being “malformed”, they might not be the natural progression of a fallingstar beast and could instead be another creation of the nox to combat the greater will, though really i think astel is one of those spots in the lore with a lot of purposeful vagueness that we love so much
I had a similar idea about the "malformed star" description, except my theory was that the not-malformed outcome is the Elden Beast, a star of light and heat and fire instead of cold and darknes. The Amber Starlight item mentions the existence of amber stars (instead of the usual glintstone stars) that seem to be superior than normal stars, dictating the fates of gods instead of mortals. Sellen also essentially says incantation and sorcery are basically the same thing just based on different material sources of power (amber vs glintstone), so it makes sense the Elden Beast would use incantations while Astels use sorcery if amber is an evolved form of glintstone.
I think it’s the vagueness of cosmic horror that makes it so intriguing. Too many details and you overrule the reader’s imagination, which is far more powerful.
Man that Fia/Jar thing pulling builds from anyone who's done those things online is actually insanely awesome. I'd love to see them expand that tech to include NPC invasions and add a bunch of new invasions to the game that can occur almost anywhere.
18:10 it'll also put a dot next to the "chat with Melina" option whenever she has location specific dialog. There's a gesture you can get from her at once church.
I was able to figure out the "May erudition light the way!” puzzle thanks to helpful messages on the ground. It made this one fairly easy for myself and I did my part in leaving a message as well showing my character wearing a glintstone hat performing the emote.
The glowing dot next to the option to replenish new flasks also alerts you to new site of grace dialogue with certain NPCs (not sure about Melina but I saw it in the Nokstella portion of Ranni's quest).
2:54 I actually figured this one out by myself on my first totally blind playthrough! By a happy coincidence I ended up there after getting the erudition gesture, and I was sporting the Twinsage Glintstone Crown as part of my STR/INT build. I only had to figure out that the hint was referencing the gesture! The magic gate faded out and I felt like a million bucks.
Its actually solvable if your online and people's messages near and inside the rise wore the Crown and did the gesture. Found it this way since 7 peeps inside the rise wore the same shit doing the same gesture.
After several hours in pure bow playthrough I found out that short bow has a backstep attack. And it's very useful, especially against enemies that tend to dodge arrows well, like NPC invaders. It needs to be timed very precisely but it's very fun to pull off.
When speaking of the merchant musicians, you mention their finger work along the “bridge”. On a lot of stringed instruments, the bridge is the point near the bowing/strumming hand that the strings are stabilized. It may be called differently on that specific instrument but typically where you are changing the note on each string and where the finger work mentioned at that moment in the video is taking place is the fingerboard, neck, or if it’s an instrument with frets it could be called a fretboard. Such a small thing to point out and I might even be wrong for that particular instrument but it’s 3am and sharing a small correction on the internet seems par for the course at this hour haha. Great video Vaati!
The first Astel fight remains my favorite encounter in the game. Until you reach that boss, the rest of the game seems like your normal dark FromSoft affair. And then you encounter that cosmic horror and realize the Elden Ring universe has a lot more to it than past wars for powerful relics.
13:00 the bloodhounds fang will do an attack if you heavy or lt and then it will do a heavy backflip and then if you hit rt it will then charge and stab it is quite great for both gaining distance and doing like 500 dog unupgraded
I actually found the Glintstone crown erudition puzzle out myself! I had just gotten done with Raya Lucaria, and was using one to get to the required int for the moon spell. I had already been using erudition for summons because I really like the glowing crystal effect the first time I tried it, and the rest of the puzzle solved itself at that point. I didn’t even know the crown was required until you just said it, only that I’d figured it out somehow lol.
The problem is that the puzzle is only "fair" if you already know about the required ingredients. I didn't even own the gesture when I found the tower, which left me with no starting point to figure it out.
@@rand0m508 The rewards inside are for magic users and it's a fair guess magic users would want to explore Raya Lucaria early and organically find the required ingredients before finding the tower. Also a fair bet that low level magic users might use the crowns because of it's effects whilst exploring around Liurnia. All that said I do agree there should be another hint to use the helmet with the gesture somewhere.
@@scottbecker4367 Yeah, I just happened to be wearing the crown when I received the gesture & understood the puzzle so fast-traveled there immediately. Didn't know you needed the crown until right now! On the other hand, I'd actually already looted the chest that is supposed to be a reward for the puzzle. I think I used Torrent to climb the stones & jump up the tower?
2:55 Since I've seen a lot of sorecerers wear the Twinsage glinestone crown throughout most of their playthrough, and since you get erudition from Thops, someone most sorcerers would have helped, I'm assuming the first to figure it out were like me, who just did erudition without knowing the crown was also part of it lol
I think that's the implication, since the towers with this puzzle are called "converted" towers and have the academy sigil. So it seems like the whole intent was for only academy sorcerers to enter, which would mean they wear the crowns by default. Also it's a way of rewarding mage characters with things they care about, spell slots. Doesn't matter if unga bunga strength build can't manage to get in, since he doesn't need to.
An interesting note, Jerren has been responsible for rousing the fighters at the castle prior to the fight, this may instead be a case of him “funneling” your reinforcements down the spindly lift, hence why there are only sporadic groups of summon signs. With the advent of the meteor and the change of the sky, he realizes it’s now or never and enters the fray. Not a huge Jerren fan, but a fun hypothetical based on the cowardly Patches summon moments prior.
Okay I need to thank you for explaining how Sheathing works because no joke since Demon's Souls it's always annoyed me how ever sword has a sheath that goes unused.
It's not so much sheathing as it is 2 handing another weapon, or fists in this case. You can have 2 weapons equipped, and as soon as you 2 hand one, the other will be sheathed. Up until DS2, you couldn't 2 hand the offhand weapon (except bows), and you didn't really get benefits for dual wielding, so it's easy to miss!
For the first secret, I really think that "Stars of Darkness" in the plural sense is meant to imply that you fight multiple Astels, but since they didn't want to literally make an Astel gank fight mechanically (Elden Ring already does enough ganks, and Astel would be ridiculous as a gank boss), they instead had that special attack to indicate that it is a plethora of Astels you are combatting. In a way, you find one of their colonies up North, I'd say, a kind of hive of Astels within the Yelough Anix tunnel mines. It raises quite a few more lore questions as to their nature as a species, and why they are located there in the Consecrated Snowfield (that has some marks indicating it was once a similar place to the underground areas), and whether they are somehow connected to the Frenzied Flame even, since there is the Yelough connection. Personally, I doubt the latter theorization, but who knows?
Your theory isntbad but i still think that the astel is only a single one. After all only one of the astels that attack you can actually grab you the other ones im pretty sure sont even have a hitbox which does hint at them being illusions. I actually think that stars of darkness is a descendant of the Naturalborn and has new abilities becuse the species is still evolving.
@@raptorxrise5386 No, all of the Astels during the Stars grab count individually. If you have any summons that can be grabbed, such as other players, everyone can be grabbed simultaneously by different Astels. This has happened to me as a summon, and ended up wiping the entire party.
@@Bathezid Damn, I had no idea about this either! That is really cool, and I think it actually backs up my theory about you fighting an entire group of Astels, at least in terms of implied intent through the grab.
Fun fact about the fingers is the shriveled finger gives you a stealth invade while the other one is just a normal invasion. Also pretty sure the normal finger usually puts you in 1v1s while the shriveled finger usually gives you ganks.
I actually did figure out the erudition one on my own because I saw the emote earlier and noticed that it made my Raya Lucaria stone helmet glow on top when I did it. I basically fluked into it.
With regards to scabbards, and I do apologize if it's already been mentioned or if it's well known, but I found it interesting that when you powerstance katanas, both scabbards appear on the side of your character, just like a traditional samurai would have it.
@@SorowFame most likely, cause when you wield the wakizashi(which would've been wielded together with a katana traditionally) the scabbard is on the opposite side
I love how Elden Ring combines all the previous Soulsbornes games all together into its best iteration with amazing Quality of Life improvements fans have been asking for in the entire series.
On the note regarding the amazing attention to detail, I noticed on the legs of Bloodhound Knight armour, the calves and front thighs are armoured only on those sides. It’s really neat, because those would be the areas of the leg the Bloodhound Knights would utilize the most in order to pull of their crazy combat style. Also, dual Bloodhound Curved Swords. Total 🐐 pair.
I think I like the Recusant theme more just because I've heard the Bloody Finger theme so many times. I actually sheath my weapons all the time! I find it more narratively enjoyable and it's especially fun for PvP where you enter with your weapon sheathed and pull it out to reveal your weapon of choice.
Heavy thrusting swords are good for lunges, (this is about shield back stepping) I use dragon crag blade on my main account and a sprinting charged attack has a good lunge range like the backstep backwards into attack. Btw nice tips.
I'm a fan of the lil tech that still works from ds3 where you sprint with your shield up, stop sprinting, and if you're still holding your shield you can do a running r1 or r2 from stationary. With heavy thrusting sword r2 this means you can suddenly lunge like 20 feet. Follow up with reverse backstep r1 roll catch and people get scared lol
Now I wish they’d used the player build mechanic for the summons in the Radahn fight. I had already been thinking it would have been really cool if they’d made Radahn an actual raid boss, but this way they wouldn’t have had to actually connect so many people.
DUDE that holy discus ricochet build goes CRAZY during the invasion at 14:30. i loved the idea in the builds video that vaati put out, but i didn’t realize how unexpected it can be for a human opponent, who probably really does not expect for the “missed” projectile that flew past them to hit them in the back and then immediately ricochet off of their attacker’s shield and hit them in the chest. absolutely my favorite build from that video.
Fully agree with the Haruki Murakami recommendation. I haven't read 1Q84 yet, but Murakami is one of my favourite writers, and Norwegian Wood in particular is by far one of the best novels I've ever read. I know it was mainly a part of the Audible sponsorship, of course, but I do appreciate the sincere love for his work.
On my second playthrough when I eventually got to the Great Jar - all 3 phantoms had the pre-nerf Moonveil and I didn't need much more convincing than that at that point that they were players at one point or another.
The best thing about the erudition puzzle. When I got the gesture I had just been there and thought "OH! this must be it!". I had no idea you needed one of those crowns until watching this video XD I just happened to be wearing one for the Int bonus XD
Found this out when Melina wanted to take me to Roundtree, and my character had to awkwardly switch from cross-legged to slumped sideways and reach over to take her hand.
The Erudition puzzle was actually one the easier ones for me, since there's another one that demands the erudition gesture but without a crown and has a different prompt. The hardest puzzle is Chelona's without a doubt, the area to search is huge and the turtles are way too well hidden.
That ability with astel multiplying should happen at half health automatically I’ve never seen it before and always thought the boss was way to easy this would make it so much fun
I use two Fallingstar Beast Jaws, and they have a wonderful set of animations. The backstep attack brings you forward with a giant overhead slam, followed by another overhead slam from the other jaw.
19:27 I think Jerren only complies to appearing in the fight later on due to the fact that he's the organiser/initiator of the festival, and if he dies there is no other person entrusted to do it instead. He only comes in when Radahn's fall is confirmed so he doesn't potentially leave the world in a weird state when noone can begin the festival and Ranni's quest can't unfold.
14:47 Awesome kill. I like creativity like that. I would've never expected that if I was on the receiving end lol. I stepped away from the game before I beat it. Same with Sekiro. I have no idea why. The others I've played thousands of hours and even have tattoos from the series. These videos always make me want to play again though, so that's what I'm going to do here today,so thank you.
I'm so glad you brought up the scabbards. I loved doing this in any fromsoft game I could. Some of those models are really pretty and it's a shame its so vague to pull it off.
Though I do remain partial to Dark Souls III, the more I learn about Elden Ring, the more I realize that it's the definition of an ambitious project done well. In all the vastness of this game's world, the minute details are not overlooked. That revelation about Fia's Champions was pretty mind-blowing.
Somebody probably already mentioned it, but cinquedea is called "five fingered dagger" not because of five fingered grip (?what does that even mean?) but because of it's five finger wide blade.
I can understand the 5 finger sized handle logic because there are hand and a half swords. Like that's what people call them. So the cinquedea is just a 'hand' sword/knife. But yeah 5 fingers wide is correct.
I believe it was a slight misunderstanding caused by the in-game description, which calls it a celebration of a beast's five fingers, symbolic of the intelligence once granted upon their kind. That sounds as though the ability to grip an object with all 5 fingers was not always something Beasts could do, and the weapon was made in celebration of their newfound ability to have all five fingers gripping. I think he didn't meant for his sentence to come across as it being the actual IRL inspiration behind the name, or he had mixed up the in-game naming inspiration with the real world version.
Also any L2 move seems to let you fall off otherwise 'walled' ledges, even the tiny amount of movement from a parry. So don't get too overzealous with lance charges or rapier piercing thrusts. The rot damage thing works because not all rot damage is equal, the lake of rot is stronger rot than the swamp by 22 damage per tick. The rot you get from letting the coating trigger is weak "swamp rot", not strong "lake rot". A similar thing is in Dark Souls, where there are different levels of Toxic. So you can intentionally toxic yourself with Dung Pies (the weakest version) to save you from the Blighttown Blowdarter version, which is the strongest version. I think this even works in Sekiro, where the contact medicine is weaker than swamps. For the "deadly poison", iirc it does double damage, but only for a third of the time. However, you can (at least on the venemous fang, idk about other weapons), infuse the weapon with poison through the black whetblade or a poison ash of war. This may seem redundant, however for some reason it actually changes the deadly poison to last exactly as long as normal poison, TRIPLING the duration. Meaning you get double damage from the poison with no downside at all. This is especially good on low-level characters or cheese builds, because you can get a good few hits on a field boss, then go hide and the poison will deal ridiculous damage. I think half of the health of the Night's Cavalry in Caelid which holds Bloodhound Step. For beating Radahn at a low-level, there's a couple of really good strategies (I'm in a 100% RL1 run and learning cheese is basically necessary). First thing, when he gets to phase 2, if you're the only target for him, you can stand right at the edge of the ocean, and odds are good he will bonk into the underwater cliff face and fall to his death. You can use the opaline bubbletear to ensure you don't die in case he actually makes it. The other thing is to get the rotten breath spell (only need 1 dragon heart, easily gotten from agheel or greyoll at low level, you don't need to beat ekyzke, just grab the spell from the church behind him), and you can cast it while on horseback. So begin the fight summoning everyone, and while radahn is busy fighting them, blast him with the rot breath. You can usually manage it quite safely. The spell has VERY low requirements and you can get the finger talisman from the husks in the roundtable. The rot will do extreme damage over time. Meaning you will never get close to running out of summons just from a single cast. You can go in and refresh it for phase 2 if you like, though it simply isn't necessary since you'll have so many summons going spare from phase 1 going faster. (If you think there's no more summon signs, just kite radahn for 1 minute, the summon sign for them doesn't appear until 1 minute after their death). And a tip for anyone doing an RL1 run, Morgott is the hardest boss in the run, so don't fret if you feel like the game is so hard early on. As soon as he is dead, you can get Rivers of Blood, and equip it thanks the mimic tear mask and dex-knot tear/talismans. Another tough customer might be Niall, but remember the pulley crossbow, poison bolts, and blood bolts, are all easy to reach and farmable. He may kill you in one hit, but he walks so slow you're free to gun him down. (At half health he dispels his illusion knights, so don't worry about them too much.)
Even though I wasn't the first one to figure the "erudition light the way" tower out without looking it up, I did manage it. It took a few days of fiddling around. I visited the other tower locations and did crazy stuff like measure the distance erudition can effect the ladder and if it can go through walls (it can). I nearly gave up until I was recently exploring the eternal city as a sorcery spec and I saw a height I couldn't reach. Just for kicks I used erudition to see if some ladder might appear, and that's when I noticed my crown was lite up. That's when I went back and solved that tower. However, its not that hard to think about this puzzle being solved very easily by accident. Most people who spec sorcery are likely wearing one of the glintstone crowns at all times since they give good boost to INT, at least earlier in the game. Its not hard to imagine they'd solve this puzzle merely because they never take the crown off, so it would incidentally light up.
#21 reminds me of Dragons Dogma Dark Arisen where (spoiler alert) the players fight a replica of their own previous Arisen when playing offline and when playing online it's a replica of the many other players that have previously played! Really neat feature.
Yes, I think it’s almost the same system. When a Arisen player defeats the Seneschal, his Arisen appearance is used against the next Arisen player who reaches him. For offline players, it’s their previous character that become the final boss. This is such a cool feature I wish to see more.
00:45 Maybe my comment is only true for some older patch but in my experience, the consecrated snowfield Astel used that attack repeatedly at much higher hp. Also I watched my friend play through the whole Elden Ring and he never went to the snowy cave. He encountered the attack on the other Astel (although only once I think) which also surprised me since I only encountered it on the snowy cave one. I think it may be super rare or maybe it doesn't happen on recent patches anymore.
I suspect a patch to have affected it as well. When I played, the essence of that boss fight was 'how tf do I survive this' since it happened every time.
Stars of darkness is the only version that does it, and it can do it any time, with any health. After he teleports, it is random choice wether he'll do his grab or not.
Fun fact about number 11, I don't know about the serpent blade but if you infuse the Venomous fangs with poison affinity, they will apply the strong Deadly poison that also lasts the full duration instead of half
The reason why some ledges let you fall and some dont is because of the damage you would take. If the fall would be lethal, theres a barrier, if it isnt, there is none.
Funny thing with the great jar knights: if you go offline after activating them, they will not rotate out if you die. I rotated through until I got a trio without a single katana, went offline, and had fun fighting builds that weren’t ctrl+c-ctrl+v bleeding katanas.
#21 is so neat. I loved how in Nioh 2 you could summon the builds of other players to fight where they most recently died. I was hoping Elden Ring would have more enemies like that. I play a ton of PVP, but it would he fun to have AI enemies using crazy weapon arts too
That little icon that appears to let players know that there are flask upgrades available in the Site of Grace menu, also appear when there are dialogue options with Melina.
The "attacking without falling off the cliff" I'm pretty sure it only works for lethal falls! My friends and I noticed it and tested out a lot, all of the times i've fallen I haven't taken damage! This could be it's own way to test a fall without rainbow stones
I swear i've heard vaati talk about what the soap does like 4 times already. 😅 How about one of those area lore-throughs like for the weeping peninsula? I'd love to see one for caelid.
@@hungfarlow4271 I mean, I don't wanna be a hater, I like Vaati's content, but compared to even DS2 he seems to be struggling to make that kind of story-based lore content for elden ring, and i cant tell if its because he doesn't care to, like you say, or if Elden ring's story content really is as thread bare as it seems...
I absolutely love the detail of Jerren only joining in the battle in the second phase, once he knows this is likely his last chance to say goodbye to his Old Friend and General and to keep his promise🗿
I have never been so addicted to a video game, after 400+ hours and two playthroughs i finally decided to give it a rest so i can play other stuff but just watching this video give me a irresistible urge to reinstall it.
For #3, just FYI for anyone who reads this, you don't need the gesture or a Glintstone Crown to get the reward at the top of the tower. Instead of solving the puzzle, you can just use Torrent to climb up the ruins around the back of the tower, jump from them to the rooftop, and walk on up. That is unless they've patched it since. I was actually kinda disappointed when I got the gesture and came back because I expected I'd get an additional reward for solving the puzzle, only for it to lead me to the exact chest I already opened.
There's two towers that require the gesture. The converted tower in southwest liurnia can be scaled by the ruins around the back, but the tower at northeastern liurnia, near the frenzy flame village, i couldn't find a way in to. And i murdered Thops early because it was lore for my character to do so, so i missed out on the gesture this game...
Yeah converted tower still works on 1.09 , was just getting all the memory stones for a new playthrough, i completely forgot about the other erudition tower though
An interesting thing I noticed is that when Stars of Darkness clones itself for its grab attack, the clones aren't exact copies of Astel. Rather than the lustrous blue and yellow orbs, the clones have the dim grey coloration of the hanging Astels (and that is what they are, they have the exact same model and even size as the proper Astel bosses, they're grey and just positioned differently). I don't think it's as simple as them being a line of growth from one to the next because of this.
another cool trick is exactly what you showcased at 14:45 in your invasion, parrying your own magic with the tree sentinel shield to deal damage to enemies
14:44 i dont really know much about elden ring pvp but this move where you deflect your own spell for a surprise attack is so damn clever i can't even put it into words
generally don't mind strategic boss reuse, especially where it's funny like the Godskin Duo, but I was really bummed when I ran into the second Astel. First one is such a shock in this gorgeous arena after going through the lake of rot, that's an experience I wish hadn't been diluted with a second go-around.
I really like the idea of a second Astel. I've only fought Naturalborn, but considering other enemies in its life cycle exist in the Lands Between, a second "adult" makes sense, and lends a sense of dread - just how many of these things are there, and is this their final, most powerful stage?
It's tough to think of any bosses other than the Great Serpent, Malenia or the final boss that don't have multiple instances if usually one of those doesn't include the second phase. I really don't care, what's not to love about MORE big fights, it definitely makes all that memorisation seem more useful when you have to use it a second time!
This video was really interesting, as an Elden Ring fan I feel like I know quite a bit about the game but you take it further by talking about bits that most people breeze by when playing and it happens to be interesting!
Incredible as always brother, appreciate your content and everything you do for us. Can’t wait to grab myself the souls arts book, definitely worth the wait.
Considering how many bleed builds I fought at the great jar, I instantly realized they were other people's characters
Imagine being unlucky enough to get a full bull goat duel nagi bhs.
@@jarrarwinks8470 With a fucking fingerprint shield in the off hand.
@@jarrarwinks8470 Bro I had some dude dual wielding hammers.
moonveil.. lots and lots of moonveil
The second I saw some goofy ass looking dude wearing a squid on his head during the fia's champions fight I realized they were players
The fact that you can summon Patches for Radahn, but he immediately exits your world is probably my favorite hidden secret I have heard so far
fucking patches 😂
I couldn't understand how he died so fast...
He’s such a b*stard I love him, cause like we all know he can fight, bro made it to the end of the world in the last game we saw him before Elden Ring
I laughed my ass off when that happened
So patches isn’t scared to fight the f*cking demon prince, but he’s scared the fight a big dude on a horse!?!?!?!
I must have died more than enough times by Astel's "Grab Attack", it frustrated and infuriated me to a great extent. I had no idea it was some kind of "hidden" or uncommon attack, he did it to me every time I went up against him, this is the stuff of nightmares since it is a one-shot as well.
It's a Dps check for taking to long
@@joeberns9668 False, it's just a random attack that can happen at any time when he's low on hp. He might teleport away and instantly activate it, and there's no counter play. It's luck-based, not a "check". It's possible to dodge with good timing, though.
in my experience he is hard-coded to do it once he reaches 25% health with a random chance to do it once he reaches 40% health
@@david5310 I've killed the boss probably 20+ times now, and on many of the kills (and attempts) he didn't do the attack, even on low HP. But it does seem like he can only use it when under approx. 30% hp.
He didn’t do it to me on my first playthrough. On my second playthrough, he did it REPEATEDLY.
There's a good secret I discovered recently. Following D's questline, you can give his brother the armor set. If you do, his stance is different while wearing the armor, and it looks like his upper half is always leaning back, kind of unnaturally. What's actually happening is that the silver part of the armor is dominant now instead of the gold part of the armor. If you get a good look at D's brother wearing the armor (best at the very end of Fia's quest) you can get a really good look at how the silver armor is holding up and supporting the gold armor, just like how D was holding up and supporting the silver head of the armor when he was wearing it.
That is extremely cool
Huge kudos for finding that! I did that questline twice and wasn’t sharp enough to notice.
That’s awesome! I never saw D’s bother again after giving him the armour set
Woah. Great find! Thank you for sharing.
Any idea if the portion of the armor the player character occupies is also adjusted accordingly once completing the questline and retrieving the armor set again?
I'm surprised more didn't know about this. Anyways, From's details in npc character differences in development with this type, armors and the like, is just
The Astel Line having such variation is really cool! one of the biggest advantages of having youre babies be SO different to the adults is no longer compete for resources with your own young. And thats really easy to see here! it looks like the young Astels are grounded, live above land and are very rocky (probably for protection, since they havent developed their big boy magic powers) while post pupation they move underground, gain wings and honestly just look super freaking cool
What's funny is a Full Grown Fallingstar Beast would wipe the floor with Astel, Naturalborn of the Void.
Literally better build, tougher (more HP/armor), more adaptable than the "mature" form. Considered one of the tougher bosses in the game by many.
@@nu1x that means that the "full grown" would become more powerful than astel.
*Big boy magic:* the bigger you are, the more rocks you can throw
I wonder if the original idea for the attack where the nearly fully grown astel throws rocks at you was to have them throw bits of their rocky pupal shell
A lot of people were upset about the astel duplicate, but it’s good there’s a legit reason behind it. Astel is a race, not an individual. Unlike mr godefroy.
The narrative structure, the calm voice, transitions, footages... bro you really did an amazing job. Congrats!
And no doubt Elden Ring is the game of the year.
And indeed it did win Game Of The Year!
I ‘solved’ the “may erudition light the way!” puzzle in the most perfect storm of events possible.
I had read it, and somewhere in my brain I went; “that sounds like the name of a gesture, let me check my list”. I didn’t find anything, so my brain went to the “light” part, and I remembered Thops sold the cast light sorcery, so I went to buy that to see if that did anything. Turns out, I had the glintstone key he wanted, so I dropped it off while I way buying the spell. Lo and behold, I got a gesture titled “erudition”.
“Cool!” I thought, “maybe I do have to use this gesture, but with the cast light spell active.”
So I went back, but I didn’t have the INT for cast light, due to running a faith build. Easy fix, popped on the twinsage crown for the extra INT. Cue my surprised ass when the crown lit up and the door opened.
It was then that I realized, a lot of these secrets/puzzles that are super weird, are solved by sheer dumb luck that just so happens to discover the solution.
In that moment, you were the protagonist
its funny i did the same but only because when i saw erudition i thought "i wonder if the mage hats react with it" and saw them light up nicely, did it with each one including haima to see if it had anything unique and was very disappointed all it did was make me look like a tree.
Those moments are what makes this game special.
I had a very similar experience. I just happened to be wearing the crown for the extra int in order to use cast light, because I thought that would have something to do with it. Probably the coolest thing I found considering I didn't look anything up throughout my playthrough.
Yeah I found everything else but the message first, so when I found it I was like “wait erudition? I got some of that”
I just had a thought about Patches during Radahn's fight. I know it's hilarious and well in-theme for him to desert the fight and run when he sees how dangerous Radahn is... but what if he's using the festival as an excuse to collect valuables on the battlefield? The battlefield is well-known to have the bodies of many powerful warriors. Maybe he's not there to fight Radahn, but to restock his wares?
someone needs to find out if summoning him the max amount of times adds stuff to his inventory, or adds new dialogue. That would be pretty cool if it does.
@@FiveSeVIIen I don't think Patches' summon sign appears when he leaves the fight.
*Alexander:* Ah, hello there, fellow warrior! Truly, that was a wonderful battle, but I doubt I need to say any more. After all, from the looks of things, you were there as well.
*Patches:* ... yeah, totally
*Alexander:* Indeed, a true warrior to the end! I suppose you're here for the same purpose as me?
*Patches:* I guess?
*Alexander:* Why, it was no guess! You are obviously--
*Patches:* (visibly starts sweating)
*Alexander:* Here to study the feats of the past festival participants, glean the secrets from their fighting styles and armaments! Truly, a student of the combat arts.
*Patches:* ...that is exactly what I'm doing. Complete respect for the dead, mo ulterior motives whatsoever.
Ayayama Style!!!
Most likely
@@davidhong1934 I mean, Alexander does eat the fallen, so I doubt he'd throw any shade at Patches....
It actually makes sense for Jerren to wait to enter until Radahn is almost dead. He would want to honor his former boss by joining in the festival, but if the festival fails and Radahn survives, someone has to be around to find fighters for the next festival. If Jerren runs in the first round and dies, but then everyone else dies with him, there's no one left to try again.
Slight correction for the Cinquedea 6:03
The reason it's called Cinquedea or Five Fingers is because the width of the blade past the guard is roughly five fingers wide.
Came down here to comment this lol
Wow you think you smart now
Jk jk, well done for spotting that, not often vaati needs to be corrected
Cheers
Beat me to it; thanks!
That's for the original dagger. Fromsoft added 5 fingers into the design. It might just literally mean the 5 fingers.
In addition to triggering illusory walls, the shackle items can also be used to trigger dungeon trap pillars from a safe distance, making that one hero grave with 3 chariots much easier.
It can also kill chariots where required.
@@nu1x it doesnt kill chariots, but the radius is so stupidly big it will trigger the pillar that spawn the chariot in other places
It summons a chariot in one of the graves and the extra chariot crashes into the other two
Really cool aspect I found the other day is it will also trigger all the magic traps in the area if there are some. The ones that shoot from the ground with the funny symbol.
I thought that grab attack was common , took me over 35ish try’s to beat Astel . For some reason I was getting anxiety throughout the fight and whenever it disappeared I would panic. Roll at the wrong time, get caught and insta killed. It’s just a really unsettling boss design like an eldritch being beyond our understanding. I was shooketh
Ah yes, finally someone else mentions Astel as eldritch. Fully agree.
I didn't get anxiety, but that grab attack ended me so many times. It was miserable.
@@scienceme9794 Same here, I'd be doing so well then my summon gets nuked as he hits about 10-5% and he teleports and grabs me as the teleport breaks your lock on and makes timing so harrrd
Twice my main rival is Melania
6:00 Small correction: 5 fingers actually refers to the width of the blade (at the guard), not the number of fingers required to grip it. The visual of the Elden Ring version actually shows this which is cool.
Thank you, this rather bugged me
and please: cinque diTA (I'm italian), let the "T" be heared properly!
Actually, it's the width of the cross-guard (the thing between blade and hilt), not the blade.
Beat me to it :D
@@vagabundorkchaosmagick-use2898 it’s the blade.
That grab attack is the single most terrifying moment I had in my whole playthrough, the fact that there were multiple Astel and the way how they were dark like shadows made that instant kill even more of a bigger impact.
i feel you!!
Wonder if it's a rare attack or something. He didn't use it in any of the times I fought him.
@@akiraigarashi2874 never happened to me either
@@kingofnara its insane to me that these are considered rare. in my first playthrough astel went for that grab attack every single time i fought him. its soo hard to dodge too
@@squentakel6463 They are talking about the one with the clones. You are talking about the basic one.
7:48 one other way to remove rot or poison once you've rolled in it, is if you've rolled on it in such a way that only your armor has been splattered, but not your skin, you can simply remove the soiled armor and the rot/poison stops building up on you!
Very cool, thanks for sharing. I didn’t know that. That’s good to know in the early game before you unlock bolus recipes.
Something I've incredibly curious about is the Eclipse. In castle sol, it's implied that the eclipe could possibly undo death itself, restoring the souls to the undead. It fails, but the mere idea that death or souls is somehow connected to sun and moon is interesting, especially considering how one of the biggest themes of Elden Ring is Regression. Two gods regressing into one, two celestial bodies doing he same
I Think The Eclipse Is A Reference To The Lord Of Frenzied Flame Ending As It Is Getting Rid Of Death By Making Everything Equal
@@born_sinner9993 I remember hearing that it was an attempt to revive Godwyn and rid him of his destined death
i like to think of Godwyn as the champion of the sun, like how Rennala is the champion of the moon. Since the eclipse shottle does deathblight buildup and with Godwyn being the son of marika, it seems like maybe hed have some goals in relation to destined death. of course this doesn't explain why an eclipse? but idk i thought maybe eclipse was metaphorical, or itll come up in DLC? anyways, random speculation
What if the sun is the Greater Will? I mean we know that Rani's god is the cold Moon.
Actually I'm not sure if eclipse in the Lands Between happens by the moon covering the sun. The eclipsed sun is specifically said to be a guardian star of soulless demigods, and every reference to the eclipse calls it "the sun devoured and drained of color", with no mention of the moon's movement.
Bought the Soul Arts book. So hyped cause I love the world art of these games
what one of my favorite youtubers commenting on another favorites UA-cam nice
@@COACHBUHL Truly a dream come true
It’s almost time for another sword game video Zanny, you’ve been happy too long
ZANMAN
But did you beat Lawrence?
Cinquedea is also what Gurranq wields and is the blade that Maliketh plunges into the seal he placed to contain the rune of death. It makes sense that the blade boosts bestial incantations seeing as how he has progenerated them.
10:25
I don't know, if this is already known, but this is an observation I have made about the feathers on notes:
- Light gray feathers have always info on how to deal with enemy type
- Dark gray feather has info on how to exploit magic type (Gravity's advantage)
- Grayish blue feathers lead you to obtain something (Physick + Sorcery) (+ _unobtainable note_ -> armaments)
- Pure white feathers warn and help you against evil (frenzy and cursed enemies)
- Colorful feathers tell you how to get to hard to get into places and locations
- Yellow seems to be for Leyndell
I don't know if it has any merit to it, but I think these feathers may have more to them then just "finishing touch".
It may tell us something about personalities of these merchants.
For example, one having pure white feathers might be a cleric of sorts.
if you look at sekiro dubi's channel, he's restored Kalé's quest line, and there it's alluded to that the merchants use messenger birds, with different color feathers representing the merchant who sent the message, almost like a signature!
An interesting thing about the Falling Star Beasts and Astels are the eyes (at least I think they're eyes) beneath their skulls. The Astels' designs are clearly reminiscent of Bloodborne, but that detail really reminds me of how Insight worked in that world. It allowed you to gain 'eyes on the inside' and eventually ascend to a Great One.
I like to believe that the Astels are primitive Great Ones. Banished, or even as seeds to take over more worlds.
@@somebodyekkee Astel is one letter removed from Aster, or star. Given the awkwardly named "Natural-born of the Void" as some sort of title, I think an alternate translation could easily be "Spawn of the Void", or fully, "Star-Spawn of the Void". Definitely evokes that Lovecraftian vibe.
@@Alle525 Yeah I'm pretty sure Astel is a mistranslation of Aster. You know how those Ls and Rs are, after all.
@@Alle525 from what Isaw on some comments, natural-born is a nice way to say a bastard child
@@iryankali2041 and you DO get the Bastard's Stars from its Remembrance
I can't wait to see how they incorporate the stars/outer gods/falling star beasts into the DLC. I want to be able to go the moon and fight some fully developed space alien monsters.
Yes! I wanna go to the moon so bad, my theory is that the dlc could be a boss rush on the moon where enemies of the greater will are imprisoned. So other things like the twinbird and gloam eyed queen could be there too!
I hope they make 3 dlcs instead of two this time
Imagine person like me who still haven't even touched the game. Probably it's going to take years for me to have the same amount of experience until the end that you got the first time. And I'm still not buying the game for the next at least three months for sure and actually we're still in the first half year
@@2810Mad I think they might, like with Dark Souls 2. Either that or the DLCs will be much bigger than usual.
I think we’re going to get a dlc based on the ice witch. The fact that the ice witch looks like Melina and shares the same eye seal is a mystery that I think needs an answer, particularly because Melina is still such a mystery to us. I also suspect the ice witch is Torrent’s former master that Ranni speaks of. Ranni studied ice magic under her and is connected to the dark moon, meaning the ice witch must also logically be connected to it. We might not literally go to the moon. I kind of hope we don’t in some ways because I don’t know how that would look, just plopped onto a barren, lifeless moon with some bosses or something. I do think we’re going to get an ice/night themed dlc in the future based on the mysteries that are left and previous dlc’s in past games, though. DS2&3 both had dlc’s that featured ice in the themes and environment. Ice/night also play larger rolls in this game than the previous games, and in my experience is one of the strongest elements in the game.
I also think we’ll get a helphen dlc, or one based around Miquella, as he’s in a larval form currently and is the only shard bearer we can’t fight as of yet.
Astel, Stars of Darkness not only has that unique ‘clone grab’ but is also the only version of Astel to use the full OST. I think it’s supposed to be the original Astel, the one that destroyed an Eternal City. That would also explain why there are ghosts of Dragonkin Soldiers near the Yelough Anix Tunnel.
@Indyfsya shut it
He's clearly the stronger one
Idky people get angry that there's 2 Astels
Lore explained Radahn was keeping the stars for bringing more of them here so it makes alot of sense for there to be more than 1.
@@Kn1ghtborne I get angry that there are 2 Astels because I think they are some of the worst enemies in FromSoft's catalogue.
I think it is kind of odd that there are only 2 and both are called Astel. Imagine if the boss of castle sol was also just called Commander O'Niel.
@@lr- Astel isn't a name, it's the full evolution of the Fallingstar Beast.
There's also the "despawn" strategy that works on Radahn. At the start of the fight immediately mount Torrent and ride backwards until Radahn's figure disappears from the screen. Take some time to buff and do whatever and then ride forward and you will see that Radahn is shooting at something in the distance. He will then put down his bow, take out his swords and charge straight towards you, allowing you to skip his bow phase
im definitely using this my next playthrough. ill take any cheese i can for that garbage ass boss
The bow part is the easiest and funniest parts.
@@Xarazel did you find him garbage before the Nerf or just always garbage?
@@Xarazel then make him crash into the water at the start of phase 2 if you really want to cheese him
@@jameskazd9951 You can also parry the start of phase 2.
It really feels like there's millions of options when i fight 7 consecutive moonveils at jar dude
Addendum for the Patches summon during the Radahn fight: he's got 4 summon signs, but can only be summoned once. As soon as you use one the others disappear.
That's literally mentioned in the video. 19:15 bottom right
@@winspyy Think they meant that Patches can only be summoned once for the entire fight. There are multiple areas you can summon him, but unlike the other characters you cannot call him back once he leaves.
He can also sometimes actually attack Radahn, but only a single strike, and only if Radahn is essentially on top of him once he forms, causing his peace out animation to be interrupted. I've had it happen twice.
Is that new? I haven't played in a while but when I fought Radahn I was able to summon Patches twice in one run. He noped out both times without even trying to attack.
But that could have also been a bug so...
Vaati, do you think there is any lore reasoning for certain upgrade materials being related to sadness? “Somber” smithing stones and Tears for the flasks?
Good one, but I am afraid that there is an stupid amount of layers in every single item that it will take a lot to uncover everything and every meaning,but maybe it is something. Also notice that Morne region, with Irina and all is the same as ds3 Morne with an Irina, the weeping peninsula (don't know if it's like this I don't play it in English so I may be wrong)
It may be unintentional in the case of the stones, since their descriptions clarify that "somber" is referring to their muted color compared to normal stones. With the flasks of tears, the sacred tears to upgrade them, and the crystal tears for physicks it's all explicitly a reference to sacred dew that the Erdtree shed like tears, though
It represents Marika's grief when her son died
I think they mean Somber meaning it's more pale colouring, not relating to sadness
@@tarnished4502 is there a morne in ds3? Who are you referencing?
About Melina cutscene - I got her inviting me to the Roundtable Hold without even entering Stormveil Castle. Basically, got chest trap teleported from lake ruins (where the first dragon is) into cave in Caelid, ran out of it, found site of grace - and there she was, all apologetic and inviting
17:57 something else to note about that little icon is that it also shows up when you can talk to Melina at a site of grace aswell.
When you're about to sleep but Vaati releases a video
Pacific coast gang rn:
Yeah
Same lol
It's 1:30 a.m. -_-zzz
Have a good night!
The invisible secrets are the hardest for me, including hidden walls you have to hit. Thank you so much for this.
Play online, there's usually a message left
Or use margits shackle.
Fun thing about the Erudition secret, players left messages making said gesture while wearing the glintstone helmets. Thanks to them I was able to solve the puzzle, moments like that are why I love the Souls games and community.
Same! I think I even used one of those craftable items that reveals more messages in the world and then found a helpful message like you described. Small but useful game mechanics. :)
I figured it out without hints because I had just picked up the Erudition emote, and I like emotes so I actively remembered what it referenced. I wouldn't have got the headpiece if I weren't going for a giantdad character though....
How do you make a message say that? All I can think of is “try helmet, then try gesture” or something, but that isn’t nearly specific enough to tell people what to wear. I figured out the gesture on my own, but not the helmet, I don’t see how you’re supposed to understand that without looking it up.
One of the two towers that require this method to unlock can actually be circumvented by climbing the wall outside and jumping on the balcony using Torrent.
@@AshenDust_ When putting down a message, you can choose to accompany it with a ghostly image of your character doing an emote.
I actually used that method to beat Radahn my first time. One because he was hard for me, yeah, but also because it felt so fitting that the fight would be this massive battle with a boat load of NPCs. I'd make sure to specifically find the finger maiden last so that I could join her in buffing/healing allies as they fight, but I'd also try to help attack too so that I wasn't just freeloading. I didn't realize how important vigor was on my first run, so I was getting 1/2 shot quite a bit, which made me feel it was fair that I was using so many npc's.
Astel's grab attack ended many of my good battles against him. Now i just back up towards a wall when he's below 25% health.
Few enemies have gotten me as tilted as Astel 2. Not sure why that grab felt so much worse than most other things in the game, but damn.
I realized that if you are in the center of the room (the yellowish "island") none of the clones can grab you.
I believe i did see him use that attack when on more that 25% health but can be only a bug
@@alvarosanchez8470 Once I found that out that fight became a lot easier. For the other fight I just make sure I have enough hp to survive it by equipping that great rune that gives a lot of hp, and drinking as soon as I see him disappear if I am not at full health followed by roll spam for a potential lucky dodge :)
Both fights are basically "can you survive the grab?"
@@ShiningSpear probably because it seems so overwhelming.
Another theory presented about astels that i enjoyed is that by virtue of them being “malformed”, they might not be the natural progression of a fallingstar beast and could instead be another creation of the nox to combat the greater will, though really i think astel is one of those spots in the lore with a lot of purposeful vagueness that we love so much
I had a similar idea about the "malformed star" description, except my theory was that the not-malformed outcome is the Elden Beast, a star of light and heat and fire instead of cold and darknes. The Amber Starlight item mentions the existence of amber stars (instead of the usual glintstone stars) that seem to be superior than normal stars, dictating the fates of gods instead of mortals. Sellen also essentially says incantation and sorcery are basically the same thing just based on different material sources of power (amber vs glintstone), so it makes sense the Elden Beast would use incantations while Astels use sorcery if amber is an evolved form of glintstone.
I think it’s the vagueness of cosmic horror that makes it so intriguing. Too many details and you overrule the reader’s imagination, which is far more powerful.
Man that Fia/Jar thing pulling builds from anyone who's done those things online is actually insanely awesome. I'd love to see them expand that tech to include NPC invasions and add a bunch of new invasions to the game that can occur almost anywhere.
18:10 it'll also put a dot next to the "chat with Melina" option whenever she has location specific dialog. There's a gesture you can get from her at once church.
I really wish you had continued making the lore playthroughs like what you did with the weeping peninsula. I loved that video.🥰
I don't think Vaati really finishes his lore playthroughs. I know he started on for DS3 that never got past the Abyss Watchers.
@@davidhong1934 I’m still waiting for the Lady Maria prepare to cry 😔
@@gianfrancodelorenzo3014 aren't we all
me too!
Go check out SmoughTown. His Elden Ring lore videos are top-notch. Like Gwyn, Vaati is waaay past his prime.
I was able to figure out the "May erudition light the way!” puzzle thanks to helpful messages on the ground. It made this one fairly easy for myself and I did my part in leaving a message as well showing my character wearing a glintstone hat performing the emote.
well that still required someone else to have actually figured it out and then show you how to do it, not much different from googling
it's how you found out about archdragon peaks.
The glowing dot next to the option to replenish new flasks also alerts you to new site of grace dialogue with certain NPCs (not sure about Melina but I saw it in the Nokstella portion of Ranni's quest).
I just started NG+ and it also does it with Melina. Very helpful and much appreciated!
2:54 I actually figured this one out by myself on my first totally blind playthrough! By a happy coincidence I ended up there after getting the erudition gesture, and I was sporting the Twinsage Glintstone Crown as part of my STR/INT build. I only had to figure out that the hint was referencing the gesture! The magic gate faded out and I felt like a million bucks.
Its actually solvable if your online and people's messages near and inside the rise wore the Crown and did the gesture. Found it this way since 7 peeps inside the rise wore the same shit doing the same gesture.
@@bismarckimperia8781 I mean that's not much different from just googling it
After several hours in pure bow playthrough I found out that short bow has a backstep attack. And it's very useful, especially against enemies that tend to dodge arrows well, like NPC invaders. It needs to be timed very precisely but it's very fun to pull off.
When speaking of the merchant musicians, you mention their finger work along the “bridge”. On a lot of stringed instruments, the bridge is the point near the bowing/strumming hand that the strings are stabilized. It may be called differently on that specific instrument but typically where you are changing the note on each string and where the finger work mentioned at that moment in the video is taking place is the fingerboard, neck, or if it’s an instrument with frets it could be called a fretboard. Such a small thing to point out and I might even be wrong for that particular instrument but it’s 3am and sharing a small correction on the internet seems par for the course at this hour haha. Great video Vaati!
I'm glad you said this. I had a pause moment like wait a sec... but I wasn't sure if I was just wrong about it.
The first Astel fight remains my favorite encounter in the game. Until you reach that boss, the rest of the game seems like your normal dark FromSoft affair. And then you encounter that cosmic horror and realize the Elden Ring universe has a lot more to it than past wars for powerful relics.
13:00 the bloodhounds fang will do an attack if you heavy or lt and then it will do a heavy backflip and then if you hit rt it will then charge and stab it is quite great for both gaining distance and doing like 500 dog unupgraded
I actually found the Glintstone crown erudition puzzle out myself! I had just gotten done with Raya Lucaria, and was using one to get to the required int for the moon spell. I had already been using erudition for summons because I really like the glowing crystal effect the first time I tried it, and the rest of the puzzle solved itself at that point. I didn’t even know the crown was required until you just said it, only that I’d figured it out somehow lol.
The problem is that the puzzle is only "fair" if you already know about the required ingredients. I didn't even own the gesture when I found the tower, which left me with no starting point to figure it out.
@@rand0m508 The rewards inside are for magic users and it's a fair guess magic users would want to explore Raya Lucaria early and organically find the required ingredients before finding the tower. Also a fair bet that low level magic users might use the crowns because of it's effects whilst exploring around Liurnia.
All that said I do agree there should be another hint to use the helmet with the gesture somewhere.
@@Willdror that's true, and I did have the glintstone crown, but I feel like the way to get the gesture is pretty specific
@@rand0m508 I had the gesture but I had no idea I needed to use the crown.
@@scottbecker4367 Yeah, I just happened to be wearing the crown when I received the gesture & understood the puzzle so fast-traveled there immediately. Didn't know you needed the crown until right now!
On the other hand, I'd actually already looted the chest that is supposed to be a reward for the puzzle. I think I used Torrent to climb the stones & jump up the tower?
2:55 Since I've seen a lot of sorecerers wear the Twinsage glinestone crown throughout most of their playthrough, and since you get erudition from Thops, someone most sorcerers would have helped, I'm assuming the first to figure it out were like me, who just did erudition without knowing the crown was also part of it lol
Me too! Exactly what I was thinking!
I think that's the implication, since the towers with this puzzle are called "converted" towers and have the academy sigil. So it seems like the whole intent was for only academy sorcerers to enter, which would mean they wear the crowns by default. Also it's a way of rewarding mage characters with things they care about, spell slots. Doesn't matter if unga bunga strength build can't manage to get in, since he doesn't need to.
@@Winasaurus dogging strength builds as a mage? 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
@@hughmann9568 I'm not a mage. Just pointing out unga bunga strength builds don't really need the memory stones. There's hardly any "strength" spells.
Me too haha
An interesting note, Jerren has been responsible for rousing the fighters at the castle prior to the fight, this may instead be a case of him “funneling” your reinforcements down the spindly lift, hence why there are only sporadic groups of summon signs.
With the advent of the meteor and the change of the sky, he realizes it’s now or never and enters the fray. Not a huge Jerren fan, but a fun hypothetical based on the cowardly Patches summon moments prior.
Okay I need to thank you for explaining how Sheathing works because no joke since Demon's Souls it's always annoyed me how ever sword has a sheath that goes unused.
I really enjoyed your new Resident Evil video dude!
It's not so much sheathing as it is 2 handing another weapon, or fists in this case. You can have 2 weapons equipped, and as soon as you 2 hand one, the other will be sheathed. Up until DS2, you couldn't 2 hand the offhand weapon (except bows), and you didn't really get benefits for dual wielding, so it's easy to miss!
Back in DS3 you could dual wield Caestus to mimic sheathing. It works in Elden Ring, but what Vaati was saying is 100% better for your build.
How do you do it on PC?
@@Omni-Man try two-handing your unarmed
For the first secret, I really think that "Stars of Darkness" in the plural sense is meant to imply that you fight multiple Astels, but since they didn't want to literally make an Astel gank fight mechanically (Elden Ring already does enough ganks, and Astel would be ridiculous as a gank boss), they instead had that special attack to indicate that it is a plethora of Astels you are combatting.
In a way, you find one of their colonies up North, I'd say, a kind of hive of Astels within the Yelough Anix tunnel mines. It raises quite a few more lore questions as to their nature as a species, and why they are located there in the Consecrated Snowfield (that has some marks indicating it was once a similar place to the underground areas), and whether they are somehow connected to the Frenzied Flame even, since there is the Yelough connection. Personally, I doubt the latter theorization, but who knows?
Your theory isntbad but i still think that the astel is only a single one. After all only one of the astels that attack you can actually grab you the other ones im pretty sure sont even have a hitbox which does hint at them being illusions.
I actually think that stars of darkness is a descendant of the Naturalborn and has new abilities becuse the species is still evolving.
@@raptorxrise5386 No, all of the Astels during the Stars grab count individually. If you have any summons that can be grabbed, such as other players, everyone can be grabbed simultaneously by different Astels. This has happened to me as a summon, and ended up wiping the entire party.
@@Bathezid wait seriously? ok i didnt know that. nvm then i guess
@@Bathezid Damn, I had no idea about this either! That is really cool, and I think it actually backs up my theory about you fighting an entire group of Astels, at least in terms of implied intent through the grab.
Fun fact about the fingers is the shriveled finger gives you a stealth invade while the other one is just a normal invasion. Also pretty sure the normal finger usually puts you in 1v1s while the shriveled finger usually gives you ganks.
I actually did figure out the erudition one on my own because I saw the emote earlier and noticed that it made my Raya Lucaria stone helmet glow on top when I did it. I basically fluked into it.
My experience as well
That's the same thing that happened with me
I had the same experience because I used the dumb ass double head helmet most of the game and remembered the emotes name.
Meaning you already wore it
Same. Lucked into it because I was playing a mage build for my first play through and was using the twinsage helm for stats.
With regards to scabbards, and I do apologize if it's already been mentioned or if it's well known, but I found it interesting that when you powerstance katanas, both scabbards appear on the side of your character, just like a traditional samurai would have it.
My guess is that it’s so unsheathe works properly without having to reverse the animations
@@SorowFame most likely, cause when you wield the wakizashi(which would've been wielded together with a katana traditionally) the scabbard is on the opposite side
I love how Elden Ring combines all the previous Soulsbornes games all together into its best iteration with amazing Quality of Life improvements fans have been asking for in the entire series.
On the note regarding the amazing attention to detail, I noticed on the legs of Bloodhound Knight armour, the calves and front thighs are armoured only on those sides. It’s really neat, because those would be the areas of the leg the Bloodhound Knights would utilize the most in order to pull of their crazy combat style.
Also, dual Bloodhound Curved Swords. Total 🐐 pair.
I just love all the little details in this game. It makes it feel so alive and shows how much care was put into it.
I'm speachless. What FS did is masterpiece
I think I like the Recusant theme more just because I've heard the Bloody Finger theme so many times.
I actually sheath my weapons all the time! I find it more narratively enjoyable and it's especially fun for PvP where you enter with your weapon sheathed and pull it out to reveal your weapon of choice.
Heavy thrusting swords are good for lunges, (this is about shield back stepping) I use dragon crag blade on my main account and a sprinting charged attack has a good lunge range like the backstep backwards into attack. Btw nice tips.
I'm a fan of the lil tech that still works from ds3 where you sprint with your shield up, stop sprinting, and if you're still holding your shield you can do a running r1 or r2 from stationary. With heavy thrusting sword r2 this means you can suddenly lunge like 20 feet. Follow up with reverse backstep r1 roll catch and people get scared lol
@@aliteralfart3819 Yeah, it could literally be better than running
Now I wish they’d used the player build mechanic for the summons in the Radahn fight. I had already been thinking it would have been really cool if they’d made Radahn an actual raid boss, but this way they wouldn’t have had to actually connect so many people.
DUDE that holy discus ricochet build goes CRAZY during the invasion at 14:30. i loved the idea in the builds video that vaati put out, but i didn’t realize how unexpected it can be for a human opponent, who probably really does not expect for the “missed” projectile that flew past them to hit them in the back and then immediately ricochet off of their attacker’s shield and hit them in the chest. absolutely my favorite build from that video.
Fully agree with the Haruki Murakami recommendation. I haven't read 1Q84 yet, but Murakami is one of my favourite writers, and Norwegian Wood in particular is by far one of the best novels I've ever read. I know it was mainly a part of the Audible sponsorship, of course, but I do appreciate the sincere love for his work.
On my second playthrough when I eventually got to the Great Jar - all 3 phantoms had the pre-nerf Moonveil and I didn't need much more convincing than that at that point that they were players at one point or another.
Mine was all three rivers of blood💀
The best thing about the erudition puzzle. When I got the gesture I had just been there and thought "OH! this must be it!". I had no idea you needed one of those crowns until watching this video XD I just happened to be wearing one for the Int bonus XD
A little discovery I noticed, In Elden Ring, when you sit down on the site of grace you can have multiple sit animations, just like in Dark Souls 1
Found this out when Melina wanted to take me to Roundtree, and my character had to awkwardly switch from cross-legged to slumped sideways and reach over to take her hand.
@@amberhernandez If I remember correctly that is actually a factor in ER speedruns, because some of the sitting animations are faster than others
The Erudition puzzle was actually one the easier ones for me, since there's another one that demands the erudition gesture but without a crown and has a different prompt.
The hardest puzzle is Chelona's without a doubt, the area to search is huge and the turtles are way too well hidden.
That ability with astel multiplying should happen at half health automatically I’ve never seen it before and always thought the boss was way to easy this would make it so much fun
An instakill move shouldn't happen automatically imo.
@@nightflash5951 if you can’t dodge it then fair enough but as I said never seen the mechanic before so I don’t know
@@jasonhyslop6736 you can dodge it. I’ve done it several times, proof tested.
I use two Fallingstar Beast Jaws, and they have a wonderful set of animations. The backstep attack brings you forward with a giant overhead slam, followed by another overhead slam from the other jaw.
16:13 Wow this is amazing....thought the npcs were strange ...to find out now that they are based on real characters, amazing.
19:27 I think Jerren only complies to appearing in the fight later on due to the fact that he's the organiser/initiator of the festival, and if he dies there is no other person entrusted to do it instead. He only comes in when Radahn's fall is confirmed so he doesn't potentially leave the world in a weird state when noone can begin the festival and Ranni's quest can't unfold.
14:47 Awesome kill. I like creativity like that. I would've never expected that if I was on the receiving end lol. I stepped away from the game before I beat it. Same with Sekiro. I have no idea why. The others I've played thousands of hours and even have tattoos from the series. These videos always make me want to play again though, so that's what I'm going to do here today,so thank you.
I'm so glad you brought up the scabbards. I loved doing this in any fromsoft game I could. Some of those models are really pretty and it's a shame its so vague to pull it off.
Though I do remain partial to Dark Souls III, the more I learn about Elden Ring, the more I realize that it's the definition of an ambitious project done well. In all the vastness of this game's world, the minute details are not overlooked. That revelation about Fia's Champions was pretty mind-blowing.
Somebody probably already mentioned it, but cinquedea is called "five fingered dagger" not because of five fingered grip (?what does that even mean?) but because of it's five finger wide blade.
I can understand the 5 finger sized handle logic because there are hand and a half swords. Like that's what people call them. So the cinquedea is just a 'hand' sword/knife.
But yeah 5 fingers wide is correct.
I believe it was a slight misunderstanding caused by the in-game description, which calls it a celebration of a beast's five fingers, symbolic of the intelligence once granted upon their kind. That sounds as though the ability to grip an object with all 5 fingers was not always something Beasts could do, and the weapon was made in celebration of their newfound ability to have all five fingers gripping.
I think he didn't meant for his sentence to come across as it being the actual IRL inspiration behind the name, or he had mixed up the in-game naming inspiration with the real world version.
Also any L2 move seems to let you fall off otherwise 'walled' ledges, even the tiny amount of movement from a parry. So don't get too overzealous with lance charges or rapier piercing thrusts.
The rot damage thing works because not all rot damage is equal, the lake of rot is stronger rot than the swamp by 22 damage per tick. The rot you get from letting the coating trigger is weak "swamp rot", not strong "lake rot". A similar thing is in Dark Souls, where there are different levels of Toxic. So you can intentionally toxic yourself with Dung Pies (the weakest version) to save you from the Blighttown Blowdarter version, which is the strongest version. I think this even works in Sekiro, where the contact medicine is weaker than swamps.
For the "deadly poison", iirc it does double damage, but only for a third of the time. However, you can (at least on the venemous fang, idk about other weapons), infuse the weapon with poison through the black whetblade or a poison ash of war. This may seem redundant, however for some reason it actually changes the deadly poison to last exactly as long as normal poison, TRIPLING the duration. Meaning you get double damage from the poison with no downside at all. This is especially good on low-level characters or cheese builds, because you can get a good few hits on a field boss, then go hide and the poison will deal ridiculous damage. I think half of the health of the Night's Cavalry in Caelid which holds Bloodhound Step.
For beating Radahn at a low-level, there's a couple of really good strategies (I'm in a 100% RL1 run and learning cheese is basically necessary). First thing, when he gets to phase 2, if you're the only target for him, you can stand right at the edge of the ocean, and odds are good he will bonk into the underwater cliff face and fall to his death. You can use the opaline bubbletear to ensure you don't die in case he actually makes it. The other thing is to get the rotten breath spell (only need 1 dragon heart, easily gotten from agheel or greyoll at low level, you don't need to beat ekyzke, just grab the spell from the church behind him), and you can cast it while on horseback. So begin the fight summoning everyone, and while radahn is busy fighting them, blast him with the rot breath. You can usually manage it quite safely. The spell has VERY low requirements and you can get the finger talisman from the husks in the roundtable. The rot will do extreme damage over time. Meaning you will never get close to running out of summons just from a single cast. You can go in and refresh it for phase 2 if you like, though it simply isn't necessary since you'll have so many summons going spare from phase 1 going faster. (If you think there's no more summon signs, just kite radahn for 1 minute, the summon sign for them doesn't appear until 1 minute after their death).
And a tip for anyone doing an RL1 run, Morgott is the hardest boss in the run, so don't fret if you feel like the game is so hard early on. As soon as he is dead, you can get Rivers of Blood, and equip it thanks the mimic tear mask and dex-knot tear/talismans. Another tough customer might be Niall, but remember the pulley crossbow, poison bolts, and blood bolts, are all easy to reach and farmable. He may kill you in one hit, but he walks so slow you're free to gun him down. (At half health he dispels his illusion knights, so don't worry about them too much.)
@loiny zen Yeah only issue is Torrent cant be summoned in the Lake of Rot. I recommend using bloodhound step over and over to cross it quicker.
vaati its 11:20 pm but i appreciate your eternal grind to understand elden ring
Even though I wasn't the first one to figure the "erudition light the way" tower out without looking it up, I did manage it. It took a few days of fiddling around. I visited the other tower locations and did crazy stuff like measure the distance erudition can effect the ladder and if it can go through walls (it can). I nearly gave up until I was recently exploring the eternal city as a sorcery spec and I saw a height I couldn't reach. Just for kicks I used erudition to see if some ladder might appear, and that's when I noticed my crown was lite up. That's when I went back and solved that tower.
However, its not that hard to think about this puzzle being solved very easily by accident. Most people who spec sorcery are likely wearing one of the glintstone crowns at all times since they give good boost to INT, at least earlier in the game. Its not hard to imagine they'd solve this puzzle merely because they never take the crown off, so it would incidentally light up.
#21 reminds me of Dragons Dogma Dark Arisen where (spoiler alert) the players fight a replica of their own previous Arisen when playing offline and when playing online it's a replica of the many other players that have previously played! Really neat feature.
Yes, I think it’s almost the same system.
When a Arisen player defeats the Seneschal, his Arisen appearance is used against the next Arisen player who reaches him.
For offline players, it’s their previous character that become the final boss.
This is such a cool feature I wish to see more.
00:45 Maybe my comment is only true for some older patch but in my experience, the consecrated snowfield Astel used that attack repeatedly at much higher hp. Also I watched my friend play through the whole Elden Ring and he never went to the snowy cave. He encountered the attack on the other Astel (although only once I think) which also surprised me since I only encountered it on the snowy cave one. I think it may be super rare or maybe it doesn't happen on recent patches anymore.
I suspect a patch to have affected it as well. When I played, the essence of that boss fight was 'how tf do I survive this' since it happened every time.
@@beefcake8134 well, you dodge. You know, press the B button. Just once. On time. That will do.
Stars of darkness is the only version that does it, and it can do it any time, with any health. After he teleports, it is random choice wether he'll do his grab or not.
the snowy cave one dose grab attack frequently
and he is more harder than Ranni's quest one
@@shreksmeatballs9435 lol
Fun fact about number 11, I don't know about the serpent blade but if you infuse the Venomous fangs with poison affinity, they will apply the strong Deadly poison that also lasts the full duration instead of half
The reason why some ledges let you fall and some dont is because of the damage you would take.
If the fall would be lethal, theres a barrier, if it isnt, there is none.
I’m pretty sure that’s not entirely reliable on those rocky edges
The insane amount of detail in FromSoft games, from insane one off details in DS3 to weird little details in menu items is crazy to me.
Funny thing with the great jar knights: if you go offline after activating them, they will not rotate out if you die.
I rotated through until I got a trio without a single katana, went offline, and had fun fighting builds that weren’t ctrl+c-ctrl+v bleeding katanas.
I just wanna say something, before the .3 update, astel’s attack used to happen at 75% and less
not the duplicating one tho
@@DemMedHornene yes it is the duplicating one, I remember it happening to me on my playthroughs
@@FarisO7 I remember fighting him before and he'd spam that shit, sometimes more than once a fight, but at least once every fight.
#21 is so neat. I loved how in Nioh 2 you could summon the builds of other players to fight where they most recently died. I was hoping Elden Ring would have more enemies like that. I play a ton of PVP, but it would he fun to have AI enemies using crazy weapon arts too
One really great back-step attack is the Golem Halberd. It turns it into a short vertical lunge and comes out really quick for a colossal weapon
I love the comparison made to antlions, especially since adult antlions have similarities to damselflies (which Astel does as well)
That little icon that appears to let players know that there are flask upgrades available in the Site of Grace menu, also appear when there are dialogue options with Melina.
The "attacking without falling off the cliff"
I'm pretty sure it only works for lethal falls! My friends and I noticed it and tested out a lot, all of the times i've fallen I haven't taken damage! This could be it's own way to test a fall without rainbow stones
I swear i've heard vaati talk about what the soap does like 4 times already. 😅 How about one of those area lore-throughs like for the weeping peninsula? I'd love to see one for caelid.
Listen, he just REALLY wants Elden Ring players to start using soap, okay?
That takes too much work.
Nah he'd rather make a 20 minute video to sell out his merch book. Call me a hater
@@hungfarlow4271 I mean, I don't wanna be a hater, I like Vaati's content, but compared to even DS2 he seems to be struggling to make that kind of story-based lore content for elden ring, and i cant tell if its because he doesn't care to, like you say, or if Elden ring's story content really is as thread bare as it seems...
@@TATERplaysGAMES I share the same sentiment.
For the illusionary floors, best trick is once you have sentry torch from leydell, or illusionary objects are revealed in your vicinity
I absolutely love the detail of Jerren only joining in the battle in the second phase, once he knows this is likely his last chance to say goodbye to his Old Friend and General and to keep his promise🗿
I have never been so addicted to a video game, after 400+ hours and two playthroughs i finally decided to give it a rest so i can play other stuff but just watching this video give me a irresistible urge to reinstall it.
Mate this game can't be uninstall let's be honest 😂
I honestly like these type of secret videos more than the lore ones
For #3, just FYI for anyone who reads this, you don't need the gesture or a Glintstone Crown to get the reward at the top of the tower. Instead of solving the puzzle, you can just use Torrent to climb up the ruins around the back of the tower, jump from them to the rooftop, and walk on up.
That is unless they've patched it since.
I was actually kinda disappointed when I got the gesture and came back because I expected I'd get an additional reward for solving the puzzle, only for it to lead me to the exact chest I already opened.
That's how I got through I was assuming that's all it was lol
There's two towers that require the gesture. The converted tower in southwest liurnia can be scaled by the ruins around the back, but the tower at northeastern liurnia, near the frenzy flame village, i couldn't find a way in to. And i murdered Thops early because it was lore for my character to do so, so i missed out on the gesture this game...
Yeah converted tower still works on 1.09 , was just getting all the memory stones for a new playthrough, i completely forgot about the other erudition tower though
An interesting thing I noticed is that when Stars of Darkness clones itself for its grab attack, the clones aren't exact copies of Astel. Rather than the lustrous blue and yellow orbs, the clones have the dim grey coloration of the hanging Astels (and that is what they are, they have the exact same model and even size as the proper Astel bosses, they're grey and just positioned differently). I don't think it's as simple as them being a line of growth from one to the next because of this.
Yeah maybe there is only one true astel, the other ones just copies?
another cool trick is exactly what you showcased at 14:45 in your invasion, parrying your own magic with the tree sentinel shield to deal damage to enemies
14:44 i dont really know much about elden ring pvp but this move where you deflect your own spell for a surprise attack is so damn clever i can't even put it into words
generally don't mind strategic boss reuse, especially where it's funny like the Godskin Duo, but I was really bummed when I ran into the second Astel. First one is such a shock in this gorgeous arena after going through the lake of rot, that's an experience I wish hadn't been diluted with a second go-around.
I really like the idea of a second Astel. I've only fought Naturalborn, but considering other enemies in its life cycle exist in the Lands Between, a second "adult" makes sense, and lends a sense of dread - just how many of these things are there, and is this their final, most powerful stage?
It's tough to think of any bosses other than the Great Serpent, Malenia or the final boss that don't have multiple instances if usually one of those doesn't include the second phase. I really don't care, what's not to love about MORE big fights, it definitely makes all that memorisation seem more useful when you have to use it a second time!
The backstep L1 when powerstancing curved greatswords is probably the fastest attack in the moveset, very underrated
This video was really interesting, as an Elden Ring fan I feel like I know quite a bit about the game but you take it further by talking about bits that most people breeze by when playing and it happens to be interesting!
Incredible as always brother, appreciate your content and everything you do for us. Can’t wait to grab myself the souls arts book, definitely worth the wait.
Bro it just came out 🥵