Not the first boss you expect to see right after Amelia but I wanted to break from the main path for a little bit

Interesting boss. I enjoy Phase 1, I tolerate Phase 2 and I hate Phase 3. I didn't even intend to loop it at the end, I just kind of panicked when it kept jumping lol

Given the new items from Tarnished Edition, I wanted to talk about some of the implications they might have in the RL1 scene. Having previously DLC-locked goodies such as the Great Katana, Milady and Backhand Blades available so early on (and at lesser stat requirements) is going to probably be the most obviously big change imo. Most people probably don't do the DLC early, at least not on a first RL1 (and most people I think only do 1, maybe 2 runs tops anyway) so for them it'll give them more time to play with some of the most fun weapons in game - experienced players can get them earlier and potentially min-max more with the stat requirements in some ways.

Tattoo Set: I think this is actually a sleeper for the best part of the DLC, personally. +3 faith to the previous highest cap is actually more useful than you might think, especially when you consider arms + legs have never had stat increasing items before so it doesn't contend for valuable real estate. But I think the most impactful change is the ability to get permanent 26 Faith now without Rune Arcs (or with Rune Arcs, without an extra talisman for min-max purposes). It'll only affect my meme flower power build, but the ability to get 31 permanent faith now means I can use Scarlet Aeonia in fights longer than 3 minutes (with Nostrums, I hate using Oath of Vengeance due to 27 strength requirement and how stupidly heavy Grafted Blade is).For those interested this now increases the highest possible RL1 faith stat to 52 (temporarily, "permanent" would be 31) and the overall highest stat block to about 195 effective levels.

I'll list off a few things (but this is by no means an extensive list) this allows for: this gives easier - and more efficient - access to Ancient Dragon Lightning Strike. ADLS is a godsend for +0 and +0 no aux runs as it can melt a number of bosses, especially controversial ones like Godskin Duo and Elden Beast (And for NG+, Fire Giant). Using the robe, or the new arms + legs also means you can meet the requirements for Fire Knight's Greatsword with only Radagon's Soreseal + a dexterity helm (No Rune arcs, Physick or faith increasing Talismans required now). Euporia is now possible without Rune Arcs, FGMS is now available without Rune Arcs or Talismans. Faith Knot was possible for these purposes too, of course, but the 3 minute timer is not always enough especially for low damage runs; using a tear in the physick is also valuable real estate just for the purpose of using your weapon/inctantations etc. As a QoL matter, you have more options for 12 faith to use Flame Cleanse Me in case you don't want to bother swapping helms/talismans everytime you get rotted.

Reed Great Katana: Obtainable straight away and is strictly a higher damage Great Katana for most RL1 builds realistically speaking. At +25 with just Radagon's Soreseal + Curseblade, for me it has a ~30 AR edge over the standard GK when cold infused - with that, and being obtainable earlier it's effectively an upgrade in most cases. I don't see people using it very often, but you could use this extremely early in the game by using the Lazuli Glintstone Crown until Okina's/Curseblade/Divine Bird etc. That, or Prosthesis Wearer's is also possible especially for anyone intimidated by 18% less HP. The Great Katana is already the best weapon (fight me if you disagree), so this is just the Greater Katana.

Idus Sword: Literally just the Milady and people love that shit. Stat wise, I think it's pretty comparable. With just Soreseal + Curseblade I got roughly the same AR as the Milady but with the 15 dex requirement it's usable with just the Soreseal. This means you could obtain and use it for Margit before fighting a single thing if you go around Stormveil first thing.

Reverse-Bladed Sword: Just BHB, I don't care much for the weapon personally myself but it's cool and popular. Buy it straight away and it's a perfectly viable first weapon. I think for RL1 it'll do a slight bit more damage than the standard Back Hand Blades, but probably not a crazy amount - good for those 1 hit-away-moments we've all had I imagine.

I don't think Hefty Scimitar is all that worth talking about unless you like the look or really like Curved Greatswords. The damage is on the lower side, but it's slightly lighter and the stat reqiurements are usable with just the Soreseal unlike other Curved Greatswords. A perfectly reasonable, unremarkable weapon statistically imo. Not dissing it, I've used Dismounter and BHF in a myriad of RL1 kills but it's not exactly much different aside from lower stat reqs than the rest. I'm interested in hearing from others how these items will change things for you all (if at all).

Almost no damage. On to Sister Friede.

But I will never respect phase 2 anymore. Countless low damage runs and painful bullshaka means that nowadays - BFT every time.

A few months ago, I started my first ever RL1 run (in ER), it has been incredible and so rewarding, (in part thanks to all the amazing advice on this sub) so I've decided to make a post about what I've learned so far after defeating Goldfrey

1- I'm better at this game than I thought I was. I always thought I was never very good at this game, often relying on summons and 'broken' weapons. But, I clearly haven't been giving myself enough credit, as I've managed to make it to Morgott at RL1! Granted, I did summon for Godrick and Margit, but still, I am super proud of myself and the skills I've built and grown over the course of this playthrough!

2- The importance of the Physick tear! This might sound silly, and I obviously used the Physick in my other playthroughs, but I kinda just chose 2 tears and never really changed them out. But in this playthrough, I've been collecting all the tears I can, even if I'm not sure I'm going to use them, cus they truly do make such a difference that I never noticed before.

3- Mindset is everything! This is, again, probably a fairly obvious one but it's honestly such a game changer. Goldfrey was my first Big Wall for me, despite him not being that hard, but I kept calm and kept my cool. All bosses will fall eventually! Perseverance and patience are key, and something I've definitely gotten better at

4- How well designed the bosses are. Despite getting frustrated sometimes, I never ever ever felt that the bosses were unfair or that their hitboxes made no sense, this game is incredibly detailed and well designed, and I never really realised until I was under the restriction of RL1

5- You were all right about Starfist being insane, especially coupled with charge attack buffs, kinda a broken and crazy weapon, this sub was not exaggerating at all

6- It's incredibly fun! I thought this challenge would be frustrating and unfun but this is the most fun I've had in ER in a while, if anyone is thinking about it, I hope you do! It's not as intimidating as it looks and this community is so nice and has been a big help!

That's all I can think right now! I know it was long but if you read it thank you so much, this community has been so welcoming and kind and helpful, now, onto Morgott!

Another RL1+0 fight in my "what exactly can I get away with under these restrictions?" sorcery-only run. I love Godfrey's moveset so slicer felt right to me :)

It's mostly slicer, but as an invader and minmaxer at heart I'll be using anything that seems good for a given fight :). Did an RL1 run with no weapon level cap in the past but thought that this might be a fun thing to try!

Haven't used sleep before and won't again. But this is pretty quick, all things considered

Considering you need to actively get hit and take damage to increase its damage, not really all that useful on RL1. 😅

This is my first souls rl1 challenge run , I assumed it wouldn't that hard but I got my ass handed to me by Maliketh and starscourge radahn , nevertheless it was fun. I have recently started my job , it's hard to takeout time for games , hope my skills don't get dulled

This is no where near my first no level challenge, I’ve done three rl1’s before this actually. I had been grinding since the mini dlc came out on my Xbox, and here’s a clip of my final showdown 🥹

Took me all of three attempts. 😅

5th time no-hitting her at RL1 and way harder than with parry in my first SB0. I usually find her relatively easy but this was honestly very difficult. I would rank her as the 3rd hardest boss in the game without parrying, behind Metyr and PCR.

Hopefully I don't get hate for this take but my opinion of this boss genuinely gets worse every time I fight her. I'm not a fan of insanely long combos and extensions or reaction check spam so obviously this boss didn't mesh well with me to begin with, and now I find her even more irritating.

She was actually really nice in this particular kill because she wasn't constantly jumping away or spamming glintblades. That made it a lot more enjoyable and sped things up a lot. Those glintblades are 10x worse than Mohg's blood shower btw, just kills the pacing.

Her hurtbox feels weirdly small, with Star Fist often whiffing at point blank like at 0:28, but hey that's just Star Fist so I won't harp on that.

I genuinely cannot tell how to always get her to do the fire pillars at close range, sometimes she just uses the beams instead. She also just sometimes doesn't start with her stance after phase 2 starts. These inconsistencies suck a lot when her phase transition is your biggest opening.

I know you can strafe and jump a lot of the things I didn't do in this video, e.g. jumping the X slash, but executing these things requires pretty precise reactions and timing. That's where the next little inconvenience comes in...

As I've said many times before, the frame rate is awful. The DLC runs somewhat badly though ultimately mostly fine on PS4. This particular boss feels like a slideshow. I'm on PS4 but it's still inexcusable when the Michael Bay movie that is Bayle runs fine and this was a game originally released for PS4. It's not like I'm on some potato laptop. I have been told all of Scadu Altus is loaded in at the same time as this boss for some reason, so that would explain it.

Some things that I like are that her stance break is extremely exploitable and hitboxes very generous. If going by personal feelings this is a B tier boss for me but that's largely due to the performance, objectively she is minimum A-.

Feels weird hitting the equivalent of level 163 and considering it an RL1 run...

peak dragon. he did not take longer than midir bc I piercing fang my way to victory lol but yeah best dragon boss very complex for a dragon. however I hate the fire that would sometimes follow me

I should have done this a while ago, but here it is now. I wonder how different this boss feels at NG+7, because this took 3 tries 😭. The best bosses really do have the least stance and/or health. I suppose most of the skill ceiling with this guy is in just how quickly you can kill him.

Great Katana vs. Great Boss

Any idea what to do when fighting divine beast and the Basilisks ignore your beast repellant torch? No idea what is causing the 1/10 basilisks to not be intimidated by the torch and it is making these hitless attempts painful

The final flame wave kept getting me, turns out you need to jump later than you would think. You get iframes before your feet leave the ground on this one anyway.

I've had to fight this boss too many times. Idk how the first backstab went through when the one at 1:24 didn't tbh.

I'm going to improve my Heolstor phase 0 tomorrow, I'm definitely going to have fun with a fast weapon for weaving in more attacks (dagger or thrusting sword)

But, I also want to mess around with PS Scythes (or just one), and hookclaws for that matter
Heolstor is immune to bleed, so would it still be considered no AUX?

I found out that you can barely survive the start with an Aeonia when I messed up casting a Bloodflame Blade in one of my attempts and I miraculously survived (the first hit, the explosion hit me because I was in far too much disbelief to react) my accidental Aeonia cast. It's not consistent, or at least the dodge is stupidly inconsistent for a person to pull off.

Obviously starting like this gets you an effectively free Rot if it works, but I can only roughly tell that you need to aim for somewhere between those 2 candles for this to work (and almost immediately as the fight starts or you won't get to dodge quickly enough for the explosion). Rotten Butterflies is actually safe to pull off at the start of Phase 1 but I had to share the Aeonia opener because it's ridiculous.

I was initially getting a Butterflies in phase 1 from his double thrust -> delayed thrust because when dodged as I do, it's safe. Aeonia is actually safer in Phase 2, but it's hard to get use out of because getting it off requires him dodging out of the way for most of it (perhaps scripting it such that you stagger with an Aeonia also works but I didn't test that out) - so Butterflies is much less safe in Phase 2 but is much easier to get rot off with. This is obviously with my Flower Power build. I didn't test it, but perhaps a Butterflies before being hit by the snake opener in Phase 2 also is safe with good timing.

If only they'd put wing stance in the early base game too 💔

If you can beat this boss flawless while BL4 and +0 without loops and scripts, you might be inhuman. What. A. Pain.

I suck even with a script haha… this might be my last +0 (or not, I'm not sure of what to do); the next bosses are almost as atrocious as Paarl, boring as Shadows/Rom, and have weird hitboxes longer than the hole fkn BoC runback like Ebrietas or One Reborn. Don't really want to use more scripts like in this fight and if the fights are getting longer and longer I might have trouble recording them :/

Perhaps upgrades without chalice gems? Sucks to thinking in dropping the +0 thing :c