Is Elden Ring TOO HARD? Why Fromsoftware buffed blessings & how to manage DLC difficulty 

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I've been helping ppl with bosses since I've beaten the game and my god the amount of times I am reverted to blessing lvl 1 or 2 because the host hasn't leveled them up is insane

I'm halfway through, so far I haven't thought it was TOO hard. It has been challenging though. Most of the bosses in the base game seem to slowly walk at you so you can set up and think, drink a potion, whatever. Even Malenia slow walks the arena for a while. In the DLC many of the bosses sprint/charge/fly right at you and attack aggressively with little break. I hate that MF Gaius though.

As a level 200 STR when I first entered DLC, I always got 1-2 shots even from the field common enemies (those goofy messmer's axe-wielding soldiers and spears). I was shocked and my brain was tryna figuring it out how not to get hit. But I kept going, doing my parry and crits run as usual. I just used what was in the game, hardly noticing any new updates or news. At level 10 tree blessings, I can absorb 4-6 hits from the same enemies, and the bosses still hit like a tank but not 1-2 shots anymore and give you chance to up your game. Suddely I feel powerful and have more confidence. This game rocks, man. If you somehow still dislike it, perhaps it's just not for you. Everyone's gotta have hobby, right? Mine is being a masochist.

Veteran here. I kinda think is harder than it should? Already done with most bosses but have to admit at some points it felt more frustrating than rewarding. I dont know if I like that most bosses now fill the screen with effects and you dont see crap. I still think from the base game and the DLC that our character is ill equipped for the challenge. Bosses keep getting faster but we still move and react at DS3 speed. Sekiro is harder, but your character is the perfect tool for the job. That's how I felt. And with that said, I do enjoy the DLC, I am happy with it, still cant get over the map verticality and the exploration is magical. I love the amount of content the DLC has, all the weapons, its a terrific game. But yea.

Don't miss out on thrusting shields guys The final boss will be a lot easier with them Royal knight resolve helped greatly with it

I think a big issue also is people that looked up powerful builds to cruise through the base game, then coming back not quite remembering how to play and the power of those builds being scaled in the DLC. It probably makes the DLC difficulty spike feel like a brick wall.

Don't underestimate cranking up endurance. Having a load of stamina and weight allowance can be way more beneficial to having a huge health pool. If you have low stamina, it won't matter how much health you have.

Isn't it because the game is hard that we play and enjoy Soulsborne games...??

what I love is how bosses cause you to mix and match your gear for the best outcome.

also pve poise is so broken, fire knight armor gives absolutely garbo level of poise but those fire knight npc can poise through pretty much anything lower than greatsword and spam spining

Rather than too hard, I think things have too much damage and not enough health. By the end of the DLC I was running the armor or solitude with the dragoncrest greatshield talismans (physical, pearldrake, and one elemental) and still getting 2 or 3-shot by some things, but once I got good at fights they would end really quickly. High damage enemies worked incredibly well for Bloodborne because of the rally mechanic--when you got hit, your best option was to increase your aggression. It led to really cool fights. But in a Dark Souls-type combat systems, if you get hit by a high-damage enemy, your best move is always to back off and heal so the next hit doesn't end you. This unnaturally lowers player aggression, and forces you to disengage when you're having fun. Some of the best bosses in the Souls series were Gael, Demon Prince, and Midir, all of whom were extreme tanks that didn't do that much damage. Even Midir's laser doesn't one shot most medium builds at the hp soft cap. These types of bosses tend to drain your healing rather than destroying you outright. The low damage means that when players get hit they can choose to stay in rather than run and heal. I suspect the focus on number of deaths is what drives this change. A boss that takes you three ten-minute fights to beat is just as hard as a boss that takes you thirty one-minute fights--it took you thirty minutes of exposure to learn both of them--but I suspect some people would complain about the first boss, saying it is too easy because it only took them three tries. Ultimately, I think a lot of these bosses feel pretty cheap, and are over-reliant on damage to make otherwise easy fights hard.

My main complaint is that I Would Like To Attack Please. It's all well and good to have mega combos that feel really cool to perfectly dodge, but the opening most bosses leave after those combos is too short for any AoW or even most r2s and charged r2s. I'm not shy about using spirits and there have been several times where the boss will switch aggro just to knock me out of an animation, which would be a cool mechanic if they didn't do it *mid combo*. (And for the final boss any attack you do get through does basically nothing unless it's a bleed proc.)

My main and only issue is the fact that there are only 50 fragments and you need 50 to max yourself out, the first couple of blessing levels are easy to find but once you reach the end it feels more like a scavenger hunt rather than progression. I was blessing level 17 when i reached the final boss and I searched what felt like the entire map but not having those last levels really hurt. My proposed change would be what they did with golden seeds in the base game, make them plentiful and have more than what is needed to max out. Having bosses/mini-bosses drop 1-2 like the upgrades in Sekiro would also go a long way to make it feel like progression. As for the bosses themselves, I only have issues with 2 of them. The first being Gaius with his bugged hitbox which should be an easy fix. The last being of course the final boss and his unrelenting endless combos, AoEs and light shows. That boss needs changes as of right now as you practically have no time to breath with its agression. I will refrain from talking about its insane damage as i was only blessing 17 as opposed to 20 but I feel it wouldn't have mattered.

This is a really well done video that a lot of people need to see. I had some initial frustration with the dlc because I ended up in front of Bayle waaaaayyyyy too early and I was getting my teeth kicked in. Did some exploring, got some more fragments and the fight became much more balanced and not a one shot fest 😂

Bosses destroying you is to be expected, but when some Rando enemy two hit kills you in an open field is the frustrating part.

The DLC takes some learning and figuring out but that’s what I love about this genre. It’s challenging and rewarding. The sense of accomplishment you get from beating a boss that was buttering your biscuits over and over again and you get that win… it’s incredible. The difficult and rewarding gameplay of the Souls Series is what made me a fan and kept me a fan to this day. The DLC is hard. And I love it. I explored the world and got more levels and Scadtree fragments and the DLC became a little easier. I personally don’t think they should’ve changed anything but that’s just my opinion.

Over the past two years, people have already forgotten that the entire gameplay loop is based on exploring the world to find resources that strengthen your character. I thought people had already figured this out with Margit and the Tree Sentinel being the first bosses, but I guess not.

Many people, including myself, are fed up with area of effect attacks galore that is so apparent in this DLC. While the overall design of the bosses is really stunning, I can't say quite the same about their movesets. Plethora of special effects that they cast oftentimes obstruct the line of sight. I can't dodge something that I don't see. Second of all, I can't stress enough just how casters are at a disatvantage in SotE. Because most of the enemies are now able to come up with long combos, there isn't much space to cast a spell. It's not just tricky as with Maliketh. It's straight-forward frustrating, especially because bosses have cranked up aggressiveness as well as animation reading. They exploit your casting, chase you, throw roll catchers at you. Sometimes it's not even hard but plainly annoying because you're unable to use your own build as you wanted. Instead, you are prompted to use a greatshield and heavy armor. I wish the game gave us some kind of way to punish the enemy for trying to fool players with delayed attacks as well as unending chain of attacks. You guys didn't put much of the critique into Scadutree Blessing system but the reality of it is that I didn't care about the runes at all. I cared about running around the world and gathering those damned pieces of bark. I don't even want to mention smithing stones as these are a joke. Why would anybody need this many of them if we can buy them anyway and it's going to be faster. I feel that SotE is a missed opportunity to include Shadow Rune Level and Shadow Smithing Stones mechanics. It'd definitely expand on the possibilities of improving your character and smoothened the overall experience by including more gradual growth. And because it'd promote player agency atop of exploration, the experience in SotE would've been much more consistent, solid and fresh. Another thing is the inclusion of deflect mechanic in the form of wondrous physick. Why make it a flask instead of a talisman or a specific ash of war? Why? It'd have opened so many different possibilities. Such a thing can be nerfed, it can e.g. lower the absorbtion when blocking my 50%, it'd instantly promote aggressive playstyle that some players like. In that regard I feel that FromSoft is too conservative in their ways. Aside from that: the DLC is great. I loved it despite its flaws here and there.

great video - this DLC taught me the importance of endurance- a lot of the new combos drain stamina. So I increased that and also was able to wear better gear.

I definitely felt the scadutree fragment buff i was at 13 frags when fighting messmer. As long they don't nerf bosses i like the challenge of fighting them and overcoming and learning as you go

Honestly the only part of Shadow of the Erdtree I’d say is too difficult is like… the Final Boss. Other than him, I never really got frustrated with the DLC. 90% of the time when I got hit and died I knew what I did wrong.

The problem is how relentless the boss attacks are. Not everyone is running a hyper tank build.

I think an issue I had was that even though FromSoft talked about the fragments, the reviews I read they had only grabbed a handful and said they didn't feel like they did much, so that made it feel like I shouldn't bother getting them. None of the reviews I read said hey, these are now the mandatory replacement for XP! Now that I know they are actually very useful, I will set about gathering them before deciding the real difficulty.

I think the argument around difficulty based on what tools you have to power up is kind of missing the point. The problem isn't just difficulty, it's just not fun anymore. If you fight the bosses "fairly" a lot of them feel borderline impossible to learn. If you go power up your character with tons of upgrades and a cheese build, then you just trivialize the boss and that's not fun either. I'm not new. I've played all their games since Dark Souls other than the PS exclusives. Cheese and over-leveling existed in those games too, but they didn't feel like the normal way to play. I played through all the Dark Souls games with just a typical ooga booga strength and avoid the bosses build. I learned the bosses, eventually beat them, and it was fun. I even did stuff like going to do Dancer early in DS3 and Madame Butterfly early in Sekiro. I knew I was putting myself through something more difficult than intended, but I was fine with that and I eventually beat them. I went to do optional hard content like Nameless King, that Dragon from Ringed City, etc. They were tough and I smashed my face into them for quite a while, but I got them. I never was enough of a masochist to do some SL1 challenge run or something, but I never felt the need or desire to reach for a cheese build. Then Elden Ring happened. Half the bosses were aggressive spammy nonsense that I didn't feel like I could reasonably learn. So for the first time ever, I swapped builds to a sorcery cheese build. It basically annihilated everything in seconds. The game went from being too hard to not even really being a game anymore. It was super disappointing. For the DLC, I went in with a relatively fairer build again, a faith/str build and I tried a variety of weapons. The early game felt like absolute crap. I was back to getting shit on by bosses in a way I didn't feel like I could learn to deal with. Most of them I only beat after a lucky attempt where my spirit ash actually did something. Then I went on exploring, finding fragments, and eventually I got to the point where I was beating the bosses in like 1-3 attempts. Why? Did I git gud? No! I had just gotten enough raw power that the bosses died too quickly. I was still getting knocked around by all their bullshit, it just didn't matter anymore. Once again, I went from unfun difficulty to barely playing the game. Even the last 2 required bosses to get to the final area went down without much of a fight. Then I got to the last boss and none of that mattered. With nearly maxed out blessings, armor, buffs, talismans, etc, I was just getting shit on by the usual bullshit. It's basically the same problem the base game had where they had to make the endgame critical path brutal to account for how much people might have explored and powered up. I looked up a cheese build and it just didn't even look fun. Now, you could still turn around and blame me for this. I just didn't find the "right" build that perfectly balanced enough power to not feel terrible but not so much power that it trivializes the boss. But where's the line? Why is that on me to design my own difficulty settings? How much is too much? If I'm struggling, at what point do I stop trying to git gud and try to drop down the difficulty with more upgrades or a more broken build? I hate customizable difficulty in general, I think it's right that the game doesn't have normal difficulty settings. But I think framing the difficulty in terms of builds and leveling is kind of the worst possible way to do that. Players want to optimize when they play with these kinds of systems. It doesn't feel good to say I'm gonna hold back and be less efficient with the build. I want a challenge set by the devs and then I want to figure out how to overcome it. I'm also not really a fan of all the bosses where some specific mechanic completely trivializes them, mostly because in a lot of cases they aren't even intuitive to figure out. How am I supposed to figure out that the Godskins can get put to sleep with a warm glass of milk? Either try literally everything on every boss to see what works, or go look it up on a wiki. So yeah. I don't want cheese builds. I don't want more scadu fragments. I just want to go back to when the games gave you an honest challenge. That they "nerfed" things by buffing the fragments doesn't really make me any more interested in going back to try to beat the final boss again. It's still gonna be a spam fest even if the numbers end up tipping in my favor a bit more.

My biggest issue with the Scadutree Fragments is that there’s a set limit to how many you can find, and only by finding them all do you hit the cap. I really liked the golden seeds, because there were more than you needed but was ultimately a max, leaving you plenty of extra. I think leaving more fragments throughout the world and perhaps having the hardest bosses drop 2 or so would make progression seem more fair and linear. I had to go on fextra just to hunt down most of them, and I’m still missing 5 or so. Encouraging exploration is good, but making it mandatory is tedious.

Good call about sharing knowledge and having the insight about something can be beneficial. With that being said, whenever you use Destined Death abilities on the last boss, they are debuffed for lower damage 😊

For my own experience, blessing level 9 and 16 tackling the same enemy were drastically different fights. And FS did not give you a whole lot of places to seek upgrade fragments. You have to find them like a chore instead of being distracted to do so feeling natural, the base game was so large and well balanced. The dlc was apparently many levels squeezed into a small map with some parts very empty and others too crammed.

Thank you for this information and your hard work.

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="212">3:32</a> someone in the fextralife bunker popping a mtn dewski

Armcchair dev here: If I were them, I would introduce "Scadurune", essentially another type of currency that can be earned from killing enemies/bosses in the Shadow Realm the DLC area. And you use those "scadurunes" to level up a special level that is only at affect in the DLC area. This is a better system in my opinion simply because the scadutree fragment system requires player to run around and find those things. In the base game you can get stronger just by doing a side dungeon. This is not possibly in the DLC which probably caused players a shock when they first get in to the DLC area. If they can just kill a bunch of enemy and get stronger than this would soften that shock. I personally find the DLC area about right. Maybe it was a bit difficult before the balance but the good thing about the DLC is that you can access almost all of the new areas. So, once I figured out that I should jump onto my steed and seek for the scadutree fragments, things got much more easier. In the end I do feel like the balance update was unnessary. They could've just add a couple scadutree fragmens right in the cave where we started the DLC it could've fixed everything. In short, DLC needed a smoother transition and should give scadutree fragments as soon as the DLC started.

I think you're spot on about the knowledge. I have a Str/Fai build that I tweak here and there because the weapon and talismans that are good for clearing weak swarms aren't good for elite enemies or good at all for bosses or ranged fights so I change it up depending on what I'm walking into. Knowing which weapons and talismans are good for not just builds but also situations is key. I love this game! :)

The dlcs have ALWAYS had the hardest bossed in the games. DS1, DS3, Bloodborne, etc.. Elden Ring became pop culture and brought in casuals that don't know how FromSoftware operates. I am loving the dlc.

It’s interesting hearing that people struggle particularly in the beginning, because that was the opposite of my experience. I struggled in middle to end. There were exactly 4 bosses I found challenging (Caveat that I’m not shy about using broken builds/summons. I use the tools I’m given.) - Gaius, Messmer, Midra, and Radahn.

I really agree with your take at the end about knowledge. I was really struggling with the second furnace golem and I looked at my cookbook recipes and found a liver item that negates fire damage and it gave me a real fighting chance together with my spirit ash. Felt great when I defeated it. I have 8 blessings but I’m not looking for them I just find them as I play.

Love your content. Really interested in your perspective on difficulty. I thought I would do well in expansion with an min maxed end game build, but I found the first encounter challenging. My first major one was the ghost guy with crossbow and sword. His hits were hard. I had to really focus to beat him, but I did. Then I traveled all around the map and picked up Scadurtree fragments and things got better.

Final boss is over tuned IMO, a few small tweaks here and there would bring him in line. Most of the rest of it is fairly in line with what I would expect from a DLC, but the changes to the STree fragments is a good call. EDIT: the beautiful yet time consuming weapon arts on some of the DLC weapons makes it such that you have to time them PERFECTLY to not be greatly punished for using them. I know, there’s a time and place for everything and not every weapon can/should be used in every situation, but try using Romina’s, Messmers or Rellanas super cool weapon arts against the final boss and you’re going to get pancaked. Dunno, just wish the super cool stuff from the DLC could be used in the DLC without being punished for it.

In my base playthrough I was able to finish the dlc, but had to use mimic on the last boss. I then tried to clear it quickly on NG+ for the items I was missing from quests… and my god it’s insanely hard on NG+. I’ve cleared the base game on max difficulty multiple times. NG+ on the DLC felt much harder than a +7 scaling on the base game. That doesn’t feel like it’s intentional

One thing I've always felt is that they missed opportunities with armor alterations and upgrades in the base game as well. I know different armor types give different benefits but maybe you could have gone to Boc and done a special upgrade to your armor that only stays on in the Land of Shadows as well. Maybe additional poise or damage negation or something. Idk how it would have been different from the scadutree blessing now but could have been cool. I'm not very far into it, and I have had a hard time. But it's been a blast. I've learned a lot, and have taken time to go explore get fragments, and even level up. I dont care much about PVP really so this is my DLC character and I'll level him up as far as I want to lol. People complained about the base game and we all adapted and got gud. We will do the same here!

Are you planning on doing a build for the smithscript weapons?😊 They're a really interesting addition that i think adds a lot to the way that melee builds work. I'd love to know your thoughts & builds too

Beating Gaius felt like getting over the hump and after that I was rolling through the DLC - so satisfying when I finally did it

I’m glad they went with tinkering the scadutree blessings to make you stronger earlier on rather than blanket nerfing certain bosses that people are struggling with

Thank you for all the guides and builds in the past week! I just have to ask tho, can we expect a bleed or STR build anytime soon?

Holy crap you've uploaded so many videos in the last few days! You are the GOAT sir

"We chose to go to the moon, not because it is easy. It is because it is hard." JFK

My only issue is the artificial difficulty associated with the tree fragments. Its ridiculous when bosses get over 100k hp and youre being dps checked. Like they can have a set difficulty and you will just have to get good instead of cheesing bosses by getting that +20 tree frag buff. Overall the system in place makes boss fights tedious or a cake walk depending how much you explore

I went into ng+ dlc at level 224 and am going through the final dungeon now at 248. I haven't had too many issues outside of when I was fighting rellana early in the dlc. Meanwhile a friend of mine is level 144 and just beat the divine lion dude and he is struggling hard. It does really feel like learning the dlc as you go, i.e. finding scadutree fragments and exploring/leveling up is the intended progress the devs wanted us to experience

I couldn't get through the final boss second phase even with mimic tear, then i learned that there is a talisman that grants you a lot of holy resistance, farmed all the fragments and got him first time with mimic tear. I learned that it's not always about having more damage.

I still remember how my first pre-nerf Radahn fight went. So fortunate to have been able to experience it.

*The problem is this:* Most players like the reputation that FROM games are hard, they like that most people who don't play them think that people who do are uber skiled. But, they're kinda not. The games aren't hard, they're just not easy, and you don't need to be that good to beat them. In all of their games you can get away with a little grinding and just dodge, R1 and heal, and thats about it. Especially the older games. Like, have you tried playing DS1 recently? Its braindead easy. How was it even considered hard?! However, with the Elden Ring DLC, you're punished for being so complacent and the mass of verbal online fans, don't want to adjust, don't want to adapt and don't actually, like being challenged. They like the appearence of challenge and triumph but don't actually want to earn it. They've meta'd the fun out of the games, and ego'd their own way out of a sense of belonging.

I've got 3 hours played in the dlc. using your hellfire herald build at lvl170. Ive beaten multiple bosses so far. The rellana fight was tough! But i thought the scaling was perfect. It reminds me of Elden Ring release before the nerfs, but slightly easier. I thought they nailed it, but i can see how other people can struggle. If they are struggling, i recommend to use a Fextralife build! They simply slap.

Elden Ring is my first FS game, and I'm loving the DLC. It's the intersection of exploration, mob combat, and challenging bosses that works for me. I've finished the base game a few times in NG, and have a character in Journey 6. For the DLC I brought a level 150 character, and have continued to level up. I've had a hard time with bosses, but could see how someone with more Souls experience (and better reflexes) wouldn't have an issue. There were a few times that long enemy combos lead to "cheap" deaths, but after seeing them players should be able to adapt. FS has also been very generous with Sites of Grace, I don't feel like I ever run out of healing/FP flasks. I'm looking forward to running the DLC with a few different builds. Thanks for posting helpful videos!

I think the changes the the fragment system are good and necessary. I did LOL when you said you beat the DLC with a big bonk build w/o too much trouble, because that seems to be a consistent metric and demonstrative of how overtuned the bosses are. If you have to perfect dodge 6 times to get to single attack window long enough for 1 hit, then that naturally biases towards those builds. I wouldn't necessarily say the game is harder than Sekiro, but I would say enemy tracking in the DLC is much closer to Sekiro than previous Soulsborne games. Especially the way bosses can reorient or change aggro mid combo or mid animation. Problem is, this game doesn't have Sekiro's defense mechanics to offset that.

I feel like the attack damage was fine before the update, the issue is how hard enemies hit, especially bosses. A lot of the main bosses swarm you the minute to get into the fight and you instantly lose at least half of health if you don't die without seeing any of their moves. Hard to learn moves you never get to see. Commander Gaius is a good example of this, it took me 10 tries just figure out how to roll through his initial charge attack the minute you enter the fight. Other bosses have a ton of long combos with huge AOE and projectiles attacks that wipe out your entire health bar instantly. I personally would like to see the bosses take more damage and deal out a bit less to make the fights longer and allow you to learn their move sets. I thought Sekiro did a good job of balancing this.

Don't ignore your defensive stats. I fought Rellana yesterday and had three out of four talisman slots filled with defensive talismans (Physical, Magical, Fire) and it made my life a lot easier.

Even though it got nerfed slightly by the initial patch, I went into the DLC with the poise-breaker mage build I had prepared and only twice did I have to change my strategy. First was against a certain big red dragon where I ended up using the Dragon-Hunter Great Katana to great effect. Second was the final boss who ended up being surprisingly vulnerable to a traditional shield-poke strategy. I was dilligent in collecting Scadutree Fragments and I also didn't shy away from using NPC cooperators and Mimic Tear. But even with these things, I found it challenging but not insanely so. Most of the bosses felt doable, provided I could learn their tactics and learn to dodge better. The only boss where I think they overdid it was the final boss. Phase 2 was absolutely insane and I honestly dread trying to fight him again with any build besides a shield-poke one. Not sure what the correct answer to fixing this is. I'm sure people won't be happy if they try to nerf him and further tweaks to the fragments will also cause drama.

I've made a NG+ Miquellan Paladin STR/FTH build focused on the Light of Miquella and the Sword of Light. It slaps.😂

My biggest complaint is getting one shot by the boss as soon as I walk into the fog gate because they’re so aggressive and on top of me before I can even move. Renalla, Golden Hippo, and Bayle were my biggest offenders.

Very well put together video. As you said; knowledge is everything in this game to make it easier and way more enjoyable.

2 years later and we're having the same conversation about elden rings difficulty

For me the issue is that the tools FromSoft hands out to the player are not line with the movesets the bosses are equipped with. If you remember back to DS1, the peak of varied movement were bosses like Artorias and Gwyn. Nowadays these two don't come even close to some of the Elden Ring basic/starter bosses. However, due to the movement in DS1 being overall more sluggish than Elden Ring's movement, they felt fair and amazing to fight. If I look now at the DLC bosses, they are spectacular. This is partly achieved by them having attack chains that are absurdly more complex than almost everything the previous games threw at you. So what did we get? As mentioned before, our movement feels overall more fluid, we have weapons with more momentum and AoW that can also help in that regard. But that's it. I feel like there is a giant gap between what we as the players got for tools and what the bosses got over the years. To summarize this, a lot of the current bosses feel like they were designed for a character action game like Devil May Cry, Bayonetta or even Sekiro, without me having the appropiate tools the protagonists of these games had. Oh, and then there is the camera...

My biggest complaint about the difficulty and the scadutree system is that it changes the focus. In the base game, if I wanted to FIGHT better I could FIGHT things to level up, improve equipment, or hone my skills. In the expansion, now to fight better you have to go explore. A mostly unrelated and in my opinion far less fun way to do it that you are now forced into. O and by the way, while exploring you’ll spend a lot of time just feeling lost or you’ll go too far and accidentally progress the game and lock yourself out of questlines. So you are simultaneously forced to explore and discouraged to.

Thanks for the content fextra life! Elden ring is my first souls game and made me appreciate the genre. Im honestly loving the dlc though and it's difficulty level, and will probably hold off on my last few scadutree fragments since the scaling is feeling too beneficial after returning to the halligtree and farum azula. I think the passive nature of scadu fragments is why they suck. There is no agency in the bonuses they grant (compared to levels which you can allocate, and flasks upgrades which mandate timing and active use in combat). I think giving us some sort of control over how they buff us while in the DLC would make it feel more rewarding, or at least engaging. Also, I really love how the dlc is further rewarding creative play and dynamic class building. I was doing a playthrough using a modified version of the noble swordman build you made a month or so back and found it destroyed some dlc bosses and was almost useless for others which forced me to swap to use great katanas and beast claws to handle different challenges. (By the way the wing stance ash of war is a fantastic progression of square off as the heavy offers similar stance pressure)

LOL There is audio of a soda being popped at <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="210">3:30</a> in the background, that's hilarious.

I don't play online so I just started the DLC at 190. Just got past messier at 200 after about 60 minutes of playtime on that fight. I'm loving the DLC so far (not a souls vet).

Still progressing through the dlc on NG+4. It's definitely challenging and frustrating at times, but I wouldn't want them to nerf it too much. I thoroughly enjoy the difficult boss fights. Dying repeatedly, learning the mechanics, experimenting with different builds to discover what works best is all part of the game. Then after putting all that work in, being able to triumph, no better feeling when you finally take down that one you've been struggling with. Sekiro was one of my favorite games of all times, and I would never have wanted to them to water it down to make it easier for me, and I certainly wouldn't want them to do it here either.

Most of the negative reviews that I saw were tied to performance, which can get really bad at times. Few thing regarding the "difficulty" of the DLC I guess : - Scooby snack blessings are in what feels like random locations, they aren't consistent like base game flask materials - There is a hard cap of 50/50 collectibles for upgrades, there aren't any extra (again like flask upgrades) which means that unless you have a tracker running at side you most likely won't end up with 20/10 buffs, I ended up with 18/9 and I 100% don't plan to search full map again and again (they should either add few more, so you can "miss" few, or make 1 material drop from each boss) - Radahn 2nd phase does feel overtuned to a degree (Radahn 1st Phase is a-ok) too many AoEs attached to every attack and to many roll catchers. Also all the particles, flash bangs and Miqeulla's hair covering half the screen certainly don't help. - Some bosses do feel like they have endless combos going, and it is generally not fun to survive a 20 second combo (it works in Sekiro due to deflect, we don't have such a thing in ER) to get 0.5s of "punish time" Messmer is perfectly balanced example of how to do "dance" with the boss correctly. - Couple of bosses are too trigger happy and feels like they spawn camp boss gate, I've seen this more as I was being summoned as you need to wait 5-10s for boss to to attack that feels like it's coded to start when host enters battle, namely Messmer, Gaius, Radahn, Shadutree Avatar and Bayle - if you enter right after host enters you will get 1 tapped 9/10 times, and some can also hit you in front of the boss door.

The issue is everything hits so hard. You can make things harder without making every enemy and boss hit like malenia

My biggest complaint is about scadu fragments - I’m at level 16 and I’d like to be level 20 - but I have no way of telling which scadu tree fragments I’ve grabbed and which ones I haven’t. This is why I wish they were locked behind bosses or something instead of spread out in a million places

I’m in total agreement with you. I was level 150 then I bumped my character up to 175 and have been contemplating 200. But with the new change to scadu fragments I’ll hover here a bit longer. Definitely just the right amount of difficulty in the DLC for me, souls vet btw.

honestly i'm having a ton of fun and it's really refreshing to have a strong set of weapons and armor and be able to take on enemies that don't just wither when i step into the room. also i love that bosses are super aggressive and don't give me time to pot etc. when i win, i win because i got in there and stopped them from attacking, poked holes in their defense, etc. great dlc, im enjoying exploring and loving the dryleaf styles + milady is soooo much fun.

The issue is very simple; In Sekiro, this kind of leveling system worked great, because you would gain them organically as you progress through the game, and the area scaled to your skill level and progression. In Elden Ring, the DLC became a treasure hunt for these fragments before you face bosses, due to the open world nature. The areas don't exactly match your amount of scad frags. That's the issue people face. Plain simple. I've played ds3 dlc, bloodborne dlc, sekiro, and er. This DLC lvling system is just implemented in a faulty manner imo

The problem is that people came thinking that they could play reactively against bosses but forgot that this game is all about memorising the bosses pattern. This is not a fighting or a fps game where you have to play reactively but its a pattern memorisation game.

It is not too difficult, some people are just complaining that they can't use their favorite build and gear the whole way through for every boss and situation.

rellana was the only boss i had some resistance with, messmer and the final one werent so bad after learning them. rellana can easily be skipped with a spiritspring so the player can get more shadow fragments

No, it is not difficult. It's artificial difficulty. That's the problem with the DLC, it trivialize 80-100 hours of Gameplay as your level is irrelevant for you need to get the Blessings in order to proper progress without struggle. Not only that, they amped up the boss aggression and combo strings to the point you literally sit for 15 seconds running and dodging before you have a 1 frame interval to either heal or stab, before they go back on their combo strings. And that without counting input reading, 360º tracking (Looking at you Blackgaol Knight when using Ash of War), roll punish and such. Depending of how you decided to play up until now, you don't play the game, you wait for the game to get tired of playing alone before you can do something. If the game is meant to have variety of builds, people should not be punished for deciding to try an unusual build or unusual weapon. The DLC is incredibly fun, and the more you explore, the "easier" it gets for you to feel like you have an actual fighting chance. But there's no sense in accomplishment at defeating the bosses this time, there's just that sense of 'Good. It is done.' And that's not the best of feelings for the boss fights. But, oh well. Guess now I wait for the 'skill issue, git gud' cult to show up to discredit all I said.

the best way I can describe it is like this: The dlc interrupts the natural progression of difficulty in an intrusive manner that does not give proper feedback to the player before hand. In gaming, we call this a difficulty spike. Not a tweak. A spike. Alot of player do not like these and respond negatively to them. The game does tell you that if you want to go back to 'normal' and undo the spike, go collect these items. It gives you a chore list and forces you to explore. This is a two for one gaming no-no. Making a chore list and forcing exploration. Exploration when forced is always poorly responded to. Players want to feel like this is being done organically and no player likes a chore list. This leaves the player with two options: suffer through the difficulty spike and feeling like their progress they have made on their character up until this point didnt matter or derail themselves to go do the 'chore list' to go back to feeling 'normal'. With my experience in this collection of games. This is the only time this has ever truly been an issue. Difficulty in all the other games was consistant and fairly linear.

Finally finished SOTE last night. Honestly, this felt like their other DLCs, which were never easy the first time through, for me, at least. I’m loving it. Excited to go through it again on NG+ or a different save.

I stopped playing ER as fighting game, relying on my rather mediocre skill, and started playing it as puzzle game. Usually most bosses have blatant weaknesses that become aparent very soon. Some are staggerable easily, some can be stance broken easily, some can be frostbiten, or are fire vulnerable... Also learning their damage type, and equipping and buffing myself with proper gear and buffs is huuuge. It actually makes me use my resources and resourcefullnes, which is something very rare in open worlds. For example, I learned quick that Rellana cant be staggered by heavy weapons, but can be poise broken in 3-4 very hard hits. Also being weak to frostbite and rot was soon apparent. So instead of trying to dodge her insane combos and once in 20 seconds poke her by my halberd, I changed strategy. Equipped in magic resist talisman, buffed by golden vow and black flame protection, I frostbite her by pots at very beginning, rotting her right after, and then I clicked endure on my dagger, switch to collosal and smacked her with golden land repeatedly. She died in 4 combos+stagger crit, I dodged like twice, used two heal pots and whole fight took 45 seconds. Best fun I ever had :D This game gives you tools, use them!

I agree at first it was really challenging, but taking it slow and exploring, changing my tactics, it's gotten easier. I've been having fun with it the whole time. I will say going back to the base game and fighting bosses I struggled with before feel much easier to handle. Like I took my new game plus character to mohg and had to fight him still and I whooped him when I usually need a couple tries to beat him. But it's been so fun finally learning the DLC bosses and figuring them out. It really does like how i felt when I first picked up souls games.

No complaints here. Loving the DLC so far.

I feel like the crusade talisman is one of the best in the game for general exploring. It literally buffs your attack power every time you kill an enemy. And it last for like 30 seconds. So if you’re exploring a legacy dungeon or anywhere, you’re pretty much gonna be stronger the whole time.

The last resort is always going full tank, like Fingerprint shield with Mogwhyns spear, as much armor as you can carry, and then poke everyone to death. Even the last boss is rather easy like that.

I heard scadutree is supposed to be pronounced "shadow tree"

All these complaints about difficulty just makes me laugh

sometimes I would almost win but I was still struggling on the final boss and the change to scadutree blessing was just what I needed to beat it.

My only complaint is that I wish the spells were a little better

There should be less fragments to collect, they feel like a chore rather than a reward. Second real issue is lvl 1 runs, without full 20 blessings it's as tidious as it gets

The DLC is hard, there are ways to make it easier, there are ways to make it more fun, people have different builds and playstyles, play whatever you want. *bow*

I'm not done yet - been taking my time exploring - but I definitely ran into a couple boss walls so far, specifically Gaius and Metyr due to a lack of time to perform any action at all without getting bull rushed (or boar rushed) in the first case and a few moves with ridiculous hit boxes and AOE effects that I just can't dodge in the second case. I eventually totally re-spec-ed into a thorn sorcery build to 'cheese' (really just an OP build) Metyr. Still stuck on Gaius though. And still have Mesmer and the madness boss and the big dragon and the putrescence guy and the final boss to go. I came into things at 160 and eventually pushed it to 175, at which point I've noticed summoning is harder, which was a real bummer. Any way, I definitely feel like the aggressiveness of boss movesets is the main problem. You just don't have time to do anything, sometimes even with a summons or co op.

I think the difficulty in the DLC is just about spot on and about as punishing as I was expecting it to be. I think the biggest thing is the meta in the base game had a heavy focus damage only, mainly using all damage talismans. Starting off in the dlc, dropping some damage talismans for more defensive stuff like dragoncrest great shield and resist talismans help out greatly until you get to a point where you have collected a fair amount of scadutree shards to compensate.

crying because the game is too hard. it really is 2024.

49s ago is crazy

This doc made me use the different resistance charms when base game i never had to ise them

I have two gripes with DLc "DMG"... 1) every enemy atack with multyhit attacks, the reson I get "oneshot" is a) enemy has a collosal weapon and it use charged delayed attacks -.-""" b) stunlocks you in a 3 to 6 hit attack combo 2) every enemy is agressive AF!!! Just the mesmers soldiers start every time with a 3-his charget AoW of theyr own and then hit 6 times justfor fun. Okay out in the world I can roll back, but in the "dungeons" there is no space to pull out, vuz you fall down, get stuck in a wall/ corner, fall into a trap -.-"" Im leveling do I can do DMG xD its nice doing 3k DMG, but the boss has like 30/50k HP.... if you dont go to lvl 200 you will fall ... Talismans: until you have 10 Scatertree blesings levels, use defensive talismans (armor/ increase potenci of flasks etc.) after that use the offesive ones. At least that worked for me. And yes, many people cry that they cant BONK every boss with "THEIR" one trick setup -.-""" Change... Survive... Adapt.... Experiment... If a sword is not enought to kill a boss, use a mallet!! -.-""" or a summon, or a co-op, or a spell, or SOMETHING OTTHER THAT YOU USE NORMALLY FFS!!!

I bet people went in at ng+7. Since the leveling system is different in the dlc, they missed 7x sets of the blessings.

The game is not difficult. The DLC is a lot of fun in my opinion. Build some muscle memory and play however you want. Elden Ring is a sandbox more than any other fromsoftware game.

Once I followed your guide and got the scadurtree frags to +5, the content of the DLC was "challengingly manageable". Then the natural progression of further items through exploration and item drops helped to make progression really flow in a natural state. Im at +15 now, and i feel a BIT op but im also at LVL 244 at the very end of journey 2, so....🤷‍♂

I started the dlc at lvl 99, and its been a blast. I brought with me a redmane greatshield, and guard countered me up until lvl 130. Then the new dex weapons made me respec more into dex, but I kept the shield. Still very fun, and a bit safe. The fragments, golden vow and crab meat also slowly made my defence acceptable. Poise set to 51 is also a good way to go. Going in at a bit low lvl also made the experience of leveling up fast, inspiring. 10/10 incredible game, I mean dlc

...The self-proclaimed "Master race"...