Elden Ring DLC: Which Dungeons Present The Great Challenges For Players? - Top 7 Worst Dungeons

Elden Ring was first released in 2022, and it was the first time that Souls series were truly brought from a niche to the masses. Perhaps some people would say that Sekiro is also a work by Hidetaka Miyazaki, and even the game of the year. Doesn’t it count as bringing Souls games to the masses? Let’s be a little more fundamentalist here. Although Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is also full of Souls, the operation method of this game is very different from Souls series, so it is temporarily expelled from Souls series. Elden Ring is undoubtedly a game that inherits the traditional Souls series. From Demon’s Souls to Dark Souls trilogy, our protagonist is a knight wearing Western armor, fighting demons or dragons on a land full of death. In Elden Ring, there doesn’t seem to be much change. So this game has been released for nearly three years, and most of the content has been completely analyzed by strategy on the Internet. So is it still worth playing? My answer is, yes. The Best Soul-like Game After the release of Elden Ring, many Souls-like works have been released one after another, such as Lords of the Fallen, Lies of P, and even Another Crab’s Treasure. These works are all excellent, and some of them are even better than Elden Ring, but they had various problems when they were released. These problems are basically concentrated on the stiff operation feel and unreasonable number of enemies. In addition to the strange rebound feel of Lies of P, another point is that the process is too short. Elden Ring has been excellent in all aspects so far. The only feeling of many players after completing the first round is: I really want to lose my memory and play Elden Ring again. For players, the best Souls series game at present is Elden Ring. Whether it is a new player or an old player, if you want to have the best Souls series game experience, then Elden Ring is his best choice. Graphics From Souls 1 to Souls 3, the picture quality of Souls series games has never been the best, but the art design of Souls Tour has always been the most fantastic. Due to the traditional fragmented narrative method of Souls series, they put all the information of the whole story in every corner of the game. This gives players the intuitive feeling that they seem to have really come to a different world full of heavy history. When the player walks out of Stormveil Castle and rides on a spirit horse to look at Caria Manor Magic Academy hidden in the lake and mist, the shock brought to the player is even greater than when the players of Souls III walked out of the underground cemetery and saw the moonlit Irithyll of the Boreal Valley. And Elden Ring adopts the design of developing a large world map, which allows Hidetaka Miyazaki to let go of his fists and feet. In the game, every time you come to a new area, you will be shocked by the spectacular scenery here. In short, if you are a player who loves scenery, then don’t miss Elden Ring. Combat Tarnished, the protagonist of Elden Ring, has a very powerful performance in Souls series. Because he has knees, he can jump! This has brought many revolutionary changes to Elden Ring in both combat and map design. However, this is a bit lacking compared to other games. As an action game, Tarnished does not have the ability to go to the sky and into the earth like the protagonists of Devil May Cry and God of War series. In fact, Tarnished is more rigid, and often after launching an attack, you have to wait for the enemy’s attack to end before attacking again. Therefore, some players jokingly call this a “round-based” attack. This fighting method is actually quite challenging. Even if the player has defeated the final BOSS, they still have to be vigilant when facing the monsters, otherwise you may be robbed of all your Elden Ring Runes by three dogs that pop out at any time. The battle of Elden Ring is mainly divided into PVP and PVE parts. Most people will only experience the PVE part, which is enough. Because just playing PVE content is enough for you to play for a long time. First of all, Elden Ring has the most content in all soul series, which is the advantage of the open world. You can spend a whole week in Elden Ring, and you may still not be able to pass it. Secondly, after you clear Elden Ring, you have new weapons and new equipment. Don’t you want to go back and take revenge on those elite monsters and bosses who bullied you? Then start the second round. Even if you are an old player, after putting down Elden Ring, you still want to take it back and play it again. Maybe try a new weapon, or change to a new style of playing. Suitable For Playing With Friends The most important thing about playing games is happiness, and Elden Ring can bring happiness to people, whether it is played alone or online. Elden Ring has an online mode. You can explore the castle or dungeon with your friends. If you are an old player, you can get the satisfaction of being a sun knight. If you are a new player, you can feel the joy of growth by getting runes to upgrade or getting new equipment during the game. If you are looking for a game to play with friends, then in addition to It Takes Two, you can also try Elden Ring.  If you are worried that Elden Ring is too difficult, you might as well participate in the giveaway of iGMeet Discord to get some runes to make your pioneering journey easier. Elden Ring will still be relevant in 2025, and it deserves to be the Game of the Year in 2022. It also received a DLC in 2024, which added a lot of new content, such as spells, equipment, and even new types of weapons. Perhaps the only person who can beat Hidetaka Miyazaki is himself. Until his new game is released, Elden Ring will always be the most fun Soul-like game.

Here, we bring you a deadly Samurai Build that wields a massive Nodachi that overwhelms its targets with maximum thrust damage and bleed procs. Even the strongest and toughest bosses in the game are no match for this build. So if you’re looking for a powerful Samurai, Bleed Great Katana Build is the one for you. In this guide, I’ll walk you through how to maximize this build, explain the challenges this build can face, and help you overcome them. Let’s get straight into it! Gameplay This build masters the art of wielding Great Katana and performs Goring Thrust, dealing massive amounts of damage to its targets and causing them to bleed in the process. But what makes it even more terrifying is mastering Bloodflame Incantations and using these spells to your advantage. This Bleed Great Katana is one of the most powerful builds in the game, making boss fights seem trivial and common enemies drop like flies. This build focuses on Strength and Dexterity as its main stats. Stats Let’s move on to the build’s stats. We allocated 50 points to Vigor to give the user a fair amount of survivability in combat. As always, if you feel that you really need more health when adapting to the gameplay of this build, you are welcome to adjust it to 60 points at any time. This setup requires a small amount of Focus to perform optimally, so we allocated 20 points to Mind. And for Endurance, 25 points is just right for this play style. Strength and Dexterity will be the main offensive attributes in this build, so we allocated 69 points to Strength and 63 points to Dexterity. In addition, Faith was increased by 25 points so that we can cast critical buffs later. Finally, Intelligence and Arcane did not increase any points. Gear It’s time to build gear, and Great Katana is making a comeback. This Great Katana requires 14 Strength and 18 Dexterity for the user to properly use the weapon. Meanwhile, it has B scaling for Strength, and B for Dexterity if the user sets it to Quality. Of course, you can also infuse the weapon with Quality Affinity to get better scaling, and thus a higher attack rating. Now, for the Ashes of War of Great Katana, we will be setting it up with Repeating Thrust. While Ash of War looks simple and straightforward, in this configuration it will deal a lot of damage while maintaining ease of use. Pressing L2 once will allow the user to perform a fierce multiple-hitting thrust that will cause the enemy to take continuous damage. This set of thrusts will not only deal tremendous damage as mentioned above, but will also effortlessly bleed the target, causing even more damage. Continuing with the secondary weapon of this build, you can use Finger Seal to be able to cast critical buffs and offensive spells later on. You can get this base Seal at Twin Maiden Husks for 800 Elden Ring Runes. Spells Next up, we have the spells we suggest. The first on the list is Flame Grant me Strength, which grants an additional 20% Physical Attack Boost and Stamina Recovery Buff. The second buff is, of course, Golden Vow. This buff increases overall damage by 15% and adds 10% damage negation, which is very helpful for this build. Next up is Bloodflame Blade, so we can drastically speed up the rate at which our targets bleed. It pairs well with Ash of War: Repeating Thrust, since this skill has a multi-attack animation. On the other hand, fire damage is just a bonus, and we’ll be relying on raw firepower with this configuration. Bloodboon will also make a comeback, since it fits the theme of the build and serves a diversity purpose. Like in the past, you can cast Bloodboon before approaching the boss, so you can increase your blood loss faster. This spell isn’t necessary, though, since you can mainly focus on dealing with Repeating Thrust alone and call it a day. Talismans Next up we have Talismans you need for this build. As always, first up is Shard of Alexander, which increases skill damage by 15%. The next Talisman for this build is Lord of Blood’s Exultation, as you’ll be dealing with fast and frequent bleed procs in this build. When it’s active, you can easily knock out a target and end the fight. If the enemy isn’t bleeding, you can swap out Lord of Blood’s Exultation for a Dragoncrest Greatshield Talisman for increased survivability, or a Two-Headed Turtle Talisman for increased stamina regeneration. For the third and final slot, we’re dealing with fast multiple-hitting attacks as the major source of damage for this build, slotting in Millicent’s Prosthesis and Rotten Winged Sword Insignia are the best choices for this build. All of your attacks are fast and multi-hitting, so you can easily keep the attack boosts from these Talismans. Best Wondrous Physick Combination For Flask of Wondrous Physick Combination, slotting in Thorny Cracked Tear is a smart move for this build. Pair it with Bloodsucking Cracked Tear because the health loss in this configuration is not that devastating, since the enemies will die quickly, anyway. This will allow the user to have a glass cannon playstyle. However, if you find that the health loss per second from Bloodsucking Cracked Tear is too much, you can equip Greenburst Crystal Tear to restore stamina faster. Armor Set Continuing with its Armor Set. Since this build is a dark and edgy samurai theme, we equipped Iron Kasa as a headdress, Death Knight pieces as armor and gloves, and finally Leather Boots as greaves. This hybrid set works well and is definitely worth your time in the long run. Pros & Cons Finally, let’s talk about the pros and cons of this Bleed Great Katana from all aspects. Pros First, start with the pros. First of course is the insane damage output of this build. Without counting bleed procs, Repeating Thrust can already deal a ton of damage in this setup. Enemies that are resistant to bleeding will still die faster than with other setups. The amazing damage of this build is made even better by the fact that the build is able to deal bleed procs. Repeating Thrust can easily increase and deal bleeding to a target. Therefore, this makes the game a bit too easy. Also, dealing a ton of damage while keeping the build easy to use is also a huge plus. Mastering the timing of Repeating Thrust is pretty easy in my opinion. Repeating Thrust can stun enemies during the animation, so most of the time, humanoid targets can’t do anything with this setup. The last plus is the super high FP Efficiency of this build, which only requires 7 Focus Points per Repeating Thrust. Cons Moving on to the cons. To be honest, this is one of the setups that I can’t think of too many cons for. If you equip Bloodsucking Cracked Tear, without any HP Regen buffs, you’ll have this glass cannon playstyle that anyone can adapt to instantly. However, even without Bloodsucking Cracked Tear equipped, the user still does a ton of damage compared to other builds. The second downside is the lack of variety in the build. If you decide to focus on maxing out the attack rating of Great Katana, you’ll have very few stats to play with. Conclusion Overall, Bleed Great Katana Build is one of the best melee builds we have at the moment. It’s incredible to be able to deal huge burst damage with just one or two skill casts, while also maintaining the overall ease of use of the build. If you’re the type of player who likes to take it easy with violent sword thrusts and bleed procs while wanting focused and simple gameplay, this build is for you. If you want to find some like-minded players to discuss build ideas with, join iGMeet Discord, where you'll not only have the latest news you want to know, but also giveaway events from time to time to participate. Looking forward to seeing you here!

FromSoftware’s extensive Faith builds have been a favorite for many players, including dozens of incantations, seals and weapons. We can see this trend in Elden Ring as well. Among them, as a powerful weapon, Black Steel Greathammer is also expanded through Faith builds. This article will provide detailed information about how to build Black Steel Greathammer to make it a powerful weapon. It is undeniable that we will encounter various difficulties and dangers in the game and getting some Elden Ring Runes will reduce the bumps of the journey absolutely. Players can find Black Steel Greathammer by finding Black Knight in Church of Consolation in southeastern Gravesite Plains. Black Steel Greathammer is very compatible with STR/FAI builds, and you can use them together. Strengths And Weaknesses Of Black Steel Greathammer Strengths: Fast move, buffable and infusible, together with fabulous stance damage Weaknesses: Low Range and only obtainable very late in-game The true power of Black Steel Greathammer is unleashed when infused into a Flame Art or Sacred in a Faith-focused build. Players can adjust scaling with its Ash of War infusion. This is its biggest advantage. Similar to Black Knights, Black Steel Greathammer also has a special Guard Counter. After the counterattack, a circle of holy light will appear on the ground with an explosion effect. The attack power is proportional to Faith. Best Stat Distribution For Black Steel Greathammer As mentioned earlier, Black Steel Greathammer is powerful when combined with a STR/FAI build. As a versatile weapon, Faith is the best stat distribution for Black Steel Greathammer. Strength is another stat distribution that has a perfect fit. However, in a Strength-focused build, the overall damage output of Black Steel Greathammer is slightly less. Best Talismans For Black Steel Greathammer Curved Sword Talisman: Increases 20% Guard Counter damage Greatshield Talisman: Decreases 20% stamina damage taken while being blocked Two-Headed Turtle Talisman: Upgrades the speed of stamina recovery speed by 22.5% Crimson Seed Talisman +1: Enhances HP restoration from Flask of Crimson Tears by 30% Best Shields For Black Steel Greathammer Black Steel Greathammer can only be used to its full potential when Guard Counters are employed. Players can choose to use Guard Counters with a shield. In an emergency, dual wielding is also an option. However, considering that it can only cause physical damage negation of 76 under normal circumstances, it is not recommended to use Guard Counters with dual wielding. As for which shield is better to choose, the key factor lies in the player’s Endurance and maximum equipment load. The weight of the shield is often positively correlated with its defensive capabilities. Therefore, heavier shields should theoretically be the first choice for players. However, considering practical factors, for example, their weight is often not suitable for most builds. Medium shields take into account both weight and defense value and are widely used by most players. Serpent Crest Shield and Brass Shield are two best medium shields, sharing of great significance. Serpent Crest Shield owns the highest guard boost in the category of medium shields, together with extremely lightweight, which can be obtained by solving Incursion Painting in Land of Shadow. And on the other hand, Brass Shield is one of the most balanced shields in the game, which could be farmed by the soldiers along the way back in Limgrave. It is the best replacement of Serpent Crest Shield for players. If players have necessary Endurance to wield a Greatshield, those two shields are the most appropriate options for them: Verdigris Greatshield: Best Greatshield definitely, which can be acquired by completing Moore’s questline, taking place of the crown from Fingerprint Stone Shield. Haligtree Crest Greatshield: A lighter variant among those Greatshields with a sharp difference of weight. Best Incantations For Black Steel Greathammer Players can choose the appropriate incantation based on their own situation. The following are two incantations that directly improve the effectiveness of Black Steel Greathammer: Golden Vow: Boosts attack and defense for self and allies by 15% and 10% separatively. Flame, Grant me Strength: Upgrades physical and fire-affinity attack power by 20% There are also some incantations that are also worth recommending, such as Pest-Thread Spears, Flame of Frenzy and Knight’s Lightning Spear. Best Crystal Tears For Black Steel Greathammer Deflecting Hardtear: Upgrades spontaneous guard, receiving a 5-minute long buff that enhances the damage of Guard Counters. Greenburst Crystal Tear: Temporarily boosts the speed of stamina recovery. If being equipped with two-Headed Turtle Talisman, boundless stamina will be given for three minutes. Let’s enjoy the game first. Moreover, if you would like to embrace more game resources, please access to iGMeet discord. It boasts a Giveaway channel where relevant product gift messages will be released sometimes. Please participate in the discord group to know more details. The above is some sharing about Black Steel Greathammer build, mainly referring to its strengths and weaknesses, and which stat distributions, shields, incantation, and crystal tears could make it a weapon with particular significance. Hope you have a fabulous game journey.

Recently, a lot of Elden Ring fans were invited to Paris for a preview of Shadow of the Erdtree DLC. How can you preview an expansion for what is already one of the largest and most flexible games ever? When what players like and dislike is largely dependent on specific choices in terms of builds, an expansion as massive as Shadow of the Erdtree, coming two years after Elden Ring, only makes things more complicated and impossible to describe with any degree of generality. Here, we’ll analyze some reports of players’ preview experiences and discuss some of the weapon arts, environments, bosses and difficulty that will be added to the expansion! Before Entering First, I have to say that it feels almost impossible to effectively preview Shadow of the Erdtree. I’d wager that a large portion of even its most devoted fanbase has yet to personally experience everything that Lands Between has to offer. For example, the parts of the game that people have experienced, which areas they enjoyed, and what problems they may have had in the base game all depend on countless personal choices made in terms of highly specific builds. Now, with Shadow of the Erdtree coming on June 21, 2024, we’ve suddenly expanded that initial dilemma: more zones, tougher bosses, more gear to experiment with, and more variables by which your own experience will subtly change. As a result, you might feel that your personal experience is harder to convey to an audience with any real generalizability. New Content Available For Preview Anyway, let’s take a look at what’s available in Shadow of the Erdtree preview event. We have three classes to choose from: Warrior, Knight, and Sorcerer, and each class is set to level 150. The team says this is just an arbitrary number they settled on for the preview, and that you can access the class after defeating Radahn and Mohg, with different stats prioritized differently for different classes. We have access to two large, separate areas of the huge new world that Erdtree offers: Castle Ensis and Belurat Castle Settlement, and have three hours to do and see what we can. However, this simplified campaign structure does nothing to prepare players for what’s coming. Add to that the inherent weirdness of any preview, you’re in a strange place, aware that you’re being watched. The biggest difficulty is how to begin to convey what actually happened in that narrow preview window. So this preview won’t be a completely comprehensive analysis of everything in the expansion, just an accurate recollection of what players experienced and were impressed by. Still, there’s so much to dig into here! DLC Is Difficult I think one of the first things you notice when jumping into a DLC is that it’s going to be hard for most players. Almost every player in Early Access booted up Elden Ring in the first few days, either to get to DLC access points or just to brush up on the control mechanics. If you haven’t already, I recommend doing so to regain muscle memory of Elden Ring’s unique and sometimes unforgiving pace. It’s also worth stocking up on some Elden Ring Runes and consumables in advance. As we wandered across this vast new plane, it was hard not to be struck by the scenery before us. Ephemeral Graves dotted the landscape, stretching as far as you could see, and the light from the cracks in Erdtree illuminated it. A far cry from the alluring golden glow of the original game, a dreamlike, beautiful, and intimidating picture. But be careful, because just when you’re enjoying all this, an enemy suddenly appears from nowhere and knocks us down with a single fierce attack. Players need to bravely fight this new opponent, but there are dangers all around, and some people were killed before they even reached the two custom areas we were allowed to explore. In short, from the beginning, Shadow of the Erdtree is an experience that requires constant vigilance. The already occasionally unbearable brutality of its base game is increased tenfold, and this brutality has not really weakened in the three-hour preview. Ordinary enemies will increase their own strength and attack you in groups, and the most insignificant enemies will usually punish you quickly because you underestimated them. Seriously, although you can enter DLC after defeating the two must-kill bosses, if you haven’t raised the vigor level to a reasonable level, you’re dying here. Even though Warrior class I’ve been using for most of this has been upgraded to level 55, the highest of all the available builds, it’s still tough. And since we’re heading into the full version of New Game+, things will inevitably get more challenging. New Weapon And Skill Selection Tougher than any of the enemies, however, is the choice paralysis I felt for a while during the preview. While most spells are obviously limited to Sorcerer, there are a number of new weapons for any build to try, including a variety of Axes, Spears and Swords, as well as a host of weapons that are becoming popular favorites in the form of new Martial Art skills. If used correctly, they can quickly wear down an enemy’s stance. Beyond that, the new combat options, such as the wealth of new weapon arts, make me feel like any of them could become a new favorite if we had more time to practice. But unfortunately, we had to look at the class requirements of the available content as much as possible before I could thoroughly master all of this stuff. Given the challenges of the above content, this strategy requires honing in on the builds that work for the time being. For me, that would come in the form of Backhand Blade, as this weapon seems to be the most satisfying choice between damage output, range, and reach, and its associated weapon art, Blind Spot, further enhances this ability. Plenty Of Areas To Explore If you only have three hours to see what’s on offer in DLC, efficiency is important, as the two areas we were allowed into look at least as densely populated as some of the larger castle areas in the base game. Castle Ensis, for example, seems to be the more difficult of the two castles, and it reminded me of Raya Lucaria Academy, with its emphasis on Sorcerers and Magic. The more densely populated Belurat Castle reminded me of the decay and decay of Leyndell. You’ll be carefully examining every visible nook and cranny before moving on, as you can guarantee there’s something waiting to pounce on you compared to the base game. Why The New Expansion Is Worth The Wait? If there’s anything exciting about this preview, it’s not necessarily any single design element, enemy, or gear, but the fact that in a few weeks we’ll suddenly have all new Elden Ring to decipher, a whole new world full of secrets waiting to be uncovered. FromSoftware really seems to have used the two years since the base game’s release to make this happen. While players have three hours to explore two enormous areas of this world, they definitely haven’t seen everything these two areas have to offer. By the end of the preview, you’ll realize that these two areas are just a tiny dot on the much larger map of this expansion. There’s so much more that you can’t even imagine, which is incredibly exciting. What do you think of this new expansion? Are there any other things you’ve discovered that were surprising? Anyway, let’s look forward to Shadow of the Erdtree in a few weeks!