Is Elden Ring Still Worth Playing In 2025?

Elden Ring does not actually explain the game to players specifically, but only makes an introduction of a simple set of explanation and the vague direction they’re supposed to head in without any details being provided. This gives players a lot of freedom to play the game in their own way and at their own pace and explore the mysteries hidden in it without being restricted. Many players said that they enjoyed this mode and often immersed themselves in it. However, due to the lack of detailed explanations, many players did not know the more nuanced mechanics. Although players can experience the game at their own pace, getting known as obscure mechanics could offer you more fresh game experience, and gain an advantage over other players. Now let’s take a closer look at these 5 obscure mechanics. 5. Buff Stacking The game does not explain the specific use of buffs. Based on their gaming experience, many players believe that different buffs can be combined which is not entirely correct. Because only some buffs can be combined with others to enhance performance. There are five varieties of buffs in the game: aura, body, weapon, regeneration, and unique, separately. Under the normal circumstance, Tarnished can only own one buff from each category (exclude unique buffs, which can stack with one another without limitation). Once players establish the combination of buffs they require, the difficulty of the game will plummet. 4. Counter Attacking There are many types of attacks in Elden Ring, such as simple attacks, vigorous attacks, powerful weapon skills, and guard counters. However, counter-attack is not being described in detail. In fact, if the player attacks the enemy with counter-attack, the damage output will be greater than usual. Combing with Spear Talisman, which will enhance the degree of damage, the damage output of counter-attack will increase by 45%. There are two conditions for an attack to be viewed as a counter-attack. In the first place, the player must employ a weapon that deals with piercing damage. Secondly, Tarnished have to attack an enemy while they are in the middle of an attack animation. 3. Feinting Feinting is one of the obscure mechanics that being barely known. Maybe many players don’t know the existence of this mechanism, or even if they know about it, they have never actually used. Feinting provides another type of attack to the player’s arsenal, enlarging the possibilities and chance of attack, and also creating the false impression of opponents in PvP. Considering the fact that multitude of people do not figure out the function of it, feints offer much help in the aspect of catching other players off-guard. 2. Hyper Armor The amount of hits Tarnished can bear before flinching is an important thing for players to pay attention to. The result is calculated by combining the poise of all armor pieces that they are currently wearing. Talismans also have a certain impact on the result. But there is another number that needs to be counted. That number is Hyper Armor itself. Each attack that a player performs will offer them a certain amount of Hyper Armor, serving as an additional poise on top of what their armor is that they already own. Under normal circumstances, the size and weight of the weapon also have a bearing on Hyper Armor. For example, larger weapons have Hyper Armor on most attacks, but some smaller weapons only have Hyper Armor on some attacks. You can get some weapons equipped with more Hyper Armor by devoting some Elden Ring Runes. By the way, charged attacks and some weapon skills will have more Hyper Armor. 1. I-Frames I-Frames are a mechanism that helps players dodge. If there are some I-Frames, the player will become invincible during the dodge process. Since Fast rolls have more I-Frames than Medium rolls, dodging attacks will become more simple and easy. In a similar way, heavy rolls own fewer I-Frames than both Medium and Fast rolls, making it much more difficult to dodge attacks in the situation of being encumbered. However, what many people do not master is that there are other methods to embrace I-Frames in Elden Ring. Mounting and dismounting Torrent while standing gives the player I-Frames while lasting for a short period. In addition, the following weapon skills also promise players I-Frames: Ash of War: Quickstep Ash of War: Bloodhound’s Step Ash of War: Vow of the Indomitable Ash of War: Raptor of the Mists Bloodhound’s Finesse Skill Dynast’s Finesse Skill If you are a loyal fan of Elden Ring, you can log in to iGMeet discord. There will be some lucky draws in Giveaway channel, and you can also get more real-time information about the game. The above is about sharing some little-known but useful mechanisms in Elden Ring. I hope it can give some inspiration for you.

Achieving immortality in Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree is more possible than you might expect. And Great Stars are one of the ideal tools to achieve this goal. This unique weapon restores your health with each use. Not only does it deal massive damage if used properly, it can also help keep your Tarnished away from death. The best thing about this weapon is that it motivates players to attack aggressively when appropriate, or to choose an Ash of War that can attack in rapid succession. Here is a detailed guide on how to build this pointy hammer. Pros And Cons Of Great Stars Great Star is a unique Great Hammer that restores 1% of your max HP with each attack. While the basic Great Hammer move can be a bit boring because of its slow swing and limited vertical tap range, its heavy attacks hit in a large arc, and any Ash of War attached to this weapon can also trigger its healing effect. The limited range of the vertical light swings can be a little annoying, but once you get used to where they land, these attacks are still fast enough to hit most opponents. Great Stars heal you for 1% of your max HP with each hit. Any Ash of War equipped with this weapon also triggers its healing effect. While the vertical light swings are limited, once you get used to where these attacks land, you’ll find that they come out fast enough to hit most enemies. This weapon has two major features: First, players can find two of the same weapon in the same game, making it ideal for dual-wielding (powerstancing) strategies, as players can get double the healing and status effect build-up. Second, it is the only Great Hammer that inflicts Bleed on enemies. In combat, combined with Raptor’s Black Feathers and Claw Talisman, players can quickly defeat powerful enemies. In addition, because of its inherent bleeding effect, it can be used with any elemental effect without losing its bleeding properties. Given the many advantages of Great Stars, this weapon has become an ideal choice for players who pursue efficient combat and resource management. On this basis, using Elden Ring Runes to further optimize your character build can significantly improve your gaming experience and combat efficiency. In addition, there is a gift channel for this game in iGMeet discord, which will release product gift information from time to time. Remember to be active in the discord group. Best Shields With Great Stars While powerstancing can effectively enhance healing and status effects, using a shield in the off-hand to block attacks is also an effective strategy for use with Great Stars. The core of this strategy is to choose a large shield or a shield with chief defense and excellent attributes to resist enemy attacks. No matter how many times you suffer damage during blocking, you can restore your health by counterattacking. Great Shields are preferred for this strategy, as you can avoid taking too much damage with your shield, and the little health you lose can be easily restored with Great Stars. Medium Shields are also a good choice if you’re willing to take a more aggressive approach when healing is needed. For specific shields to consider, Fingerprint Stone Shield and the more easily available DLC-cousin, Verdigris Greatshield are both great choices, as they have high guard boost and 100% physical resistance. Among Medium Shields, Brass Shield and Wolf Crest Shield are very close to Great Shields, both of which provide high Guard Boost and 100% physical resistance, meaning you can defend yourself against almost unlimited physical attacks. Alternatively, Carian Knight’s Shield with a Greatshield Talisman also performs well when used, and is particularly good at blocking Holy and Magic attacks, although its modest defense boost can sometimes limit the shield’s performance. Best Ashes Of War And Infusions With Great Stars Ashes Of War Ash of War: Prelate’s Charge Ash of War: Wild Strikes Ash of War: Chilling Mist Ash of War: Cragblade Infusions Cold Heavy Blood Since Great Stars have the innate bleed and passive healing, you should use three different infusions in your build, including Bleed, Cold, or Heavy for raw damage. For Ashes of War, you want anything that can hit multiple times to get as much healing as possible. Since you already benefit from fast, repeated attacks, applying status effects like Cold or Bleed will also fit perfectly into your build. Cold builds will use Cold infusion, and use Cragblade or Chilling Mist for Ashes of War. With Chilling Mist, you can heal yourself with each attack; while Cragblade provides a steady medium damage output. Additionally, Frostbite triggers to deal 10% damage based on the target’s maximum health (7% for boss enemies), and also increases the target’s damage taken by 20%. When used in conjunction with Great Stars, these abilities combine to significantly increase the weapon’s overall damage output. Bleed builds will feature either Blood or Heavy infusion, with either Wild Strikes or Cragblade as Ashes of War. Blood is the better choice if you don’t invest more points in Strength than is necessary to equip the weapon. However, if you’re looking to give your swings more power and rely solely on Hemorrage triggers for the extra damage and all the benefits it brings, Heavy infusion is a better choice. Regardless of which infusion you choose, White Mask, Blood God’s Exultation, and Bloodflame Flame Blade are key damage-boosting items that can take your damage output from mediocre to devastating enough to destroy average foot soldiers and demigods alike. Best Stats With Great Stars Ideally, you should focus on Strength to maximize your damage output, or, if you want to maximize bloodloss damage, then you should focus on Arcane. To ensure that each swing deals maximum damage, reaching 80 Strength is ideal. With Bleed builds, you’ll want around 45 to 50 points of Arcane to reach the softcap. Beyond that, you can allocate additional points to Strength, Vigor, and Endurance. So embark on your journey with Great Stars and let its power guide you through the challenges of Shadow of the Erdtree in Elden Ring.

In Elden Ring Patch 1.13 released some time ago, Golem Fist has become a new favorite among players because the heavy attack of this weapon has a second hit box! Now, at the right range, your heavy attack will attack twice instead of once. This allows you to deal with more damage at close range. But you can’t just use it. You will find that when preparing a build around Golem Fist, you also need to consider the weaknesses and some failures of this weapon. Don’t panic, this guide will list the items you need to prepare and some information you need to know before building a build for it. Golem Fist Pros And Cons First, let’s introduce Golem Fist, which is a new weapon added in Shadow of the Erdtree. You can find it in Ruined Forge of Taylew. Although it has normal boxing-oriented attacks, its unique feature is that it can stand up and fire projectiles. It can be used whether you are charging or not charging, and it does not use your FP. However, it is important to remind you that the damage that Golem Fist can deal is relatively small, but you can use it to hit some large enemies that are not too far away from you. But you can disrupt their rhythm in front of enemies using spells, or add more status effects. As for the low damage just mentioned, after Patch 1.13, Golem Fist can now deal enough damage to allow you to fight some medium-difficulty bosses. Although it will be challenging to use it in PVP because the projectile’s ability to track enemies is poor, the high damage of the heavy attack can still use Golem Fist to fight some enemies that are very close. When used on a boss, as long as you can complete the charge of the heavy attack, you can easily defeat it and pick up Elden Ring Runes. Or, if you don’t have time for a heavy attack, the light attack and dash attack speed of this weapon are fast enough to catch enemies in PVP and PVE well. Although Golem Fist has many advantages, its biggest weakness is that there are a lot of bugs in the game that drag down its overall performance. Although some of them have been fixed in Patch 1.13, there are still some problems left - Golem Fist cannot get pleasant benefits from Smithing Talisman and Axe Talisman. So you may need to pay attention when choosing amulets in the future. In addition, the benefits of Spiked Cracked Tear on weapons cannot be reflected on Golem Fist. Best Ashes Of War Given the pros and cons above, you should consider three things when choosing Ashes of War: increased damage, making it difficult for enemies to interrupt your attacks, and being able to teleport into the effective range of Golem Fist in time. So based on these three points, Ashes of War you can choose from are as follows: Ash of War: Endure Ash of War: Quickstep Ash of War: Bloodhound’s Step Ash of War: Shriek of Sorrow Ash of War: Poison Flower Blooms Twice Best Infusions For Infusions, pay more attention to status build-up. If you like the feeling of a melee in combat, you can also increase the power of attack from Golem Fist a little. Although the first power attack of this weapon is currently buggy and does not apply any status effects, the second blow and the projectile itself still apply status accumulation. So you can learn how to increase it first, and you can get started as soon as possible after the fix is ​​fixed. Since its heavy attacks hit so fast but its light attacks combo so quickly, Golem Fist can still accumulate status effects at a very fast rate. Based on this condition, you can choose Blood infusion or Frost infusion. The former is the best choice of the two, because you can combine White Mask and Lord of Blood’s Exultation with it, so that your punch damage will be greatly increased. Besides those two, Poison is also a superb choice, and you can combine it with Kindred of Rot’s Exultation talisman and Mushroom Crown helmet, which will give you an unexpected effect. Optimal Stats Distribution For Golem Fist, there are two builds you can choose: one that focuses on Faith and Strength, and the other that focuses on Strength and Arcane. If you want your status effects to be stronger, you can put 70-80 skill points into Strength, and then put 40-50 points into Arcane, so that you can get the strongest attack in the light and heavy attack combination. Because of the high Arcane attribute, you can build up status effects very quickly. Alternatively, if your focus is on increasing heavy attacks, you can put 70-80 into Faith and only 40 into Strength. This will allow you to cast buffs and get extremely high damage values ​​from Flame Art infusion. Best Talisman Millicent’s Prosthesis/Rotten Winged Talisman These two Talismans are seen in some common builds and are a must-have. They increase your damage with each consecutive hit, which is very useful for Golem Fist. This damage buff caps out at three consecutive hits, which is the same as four hits with your full-strength heavy attack. Or you can choose to achieve the same effect with a series of fast and frequent light attacks. It’s up to you. Bull-Goat’s Talisman You need to build up your Poise before using Golem Fist to ensure that your light and heavy attacks are not interrupted by enemies. Then equip Bull-Goat’s Talisman, which increases your Poise by 33%. If you want to get your Poise above 75, you can use this Talisman with some heavier armor. Used together, it may have a remarkable effect. Two-Headed Turtle Talisman Whether you focus on Golem Fist’s light or heavy attacks, you should always focus on your stamina. If you don’t want to keep an eye on these stats, you can equip Two-Headed Turtle Talisman, which can help you recover stamina faster and make stamina management easier to handle. If you encounter any problems in Elden Ring DLC, you are welcome to come to iGMeet Discord to tell your problem. I believe that many players in it will definitely give you a perfect answer. You may even have a chance to get some runes as a bonus! After learning some information about Golem Fist, are you eager to open the game and start modifying your own build? I hope this guide can help you in your exploration process, and I wish you a happy game!

Spinning Gravity Thrust is one of the craziest newest Ashes of War builds from Elden Ring DLC, and it’s so powerful that I made an OP build specifically centered on it, Berserker Samurai Build. Here I’ll cover the play style for this Berserker Samurai, what gear to use, the best Talismans, helpful gameplay tips, and the pros and cons of this build. So if you’re looking for an effective build for this Ash of War, this guide is for you. Build Basics Berserker Samurai’s insane damage output can instantly break almost any boss in the game, with bleed procs raw firepower. This is a super aggressive build that trades hitting and taking damage to deal as much damage as possible in a short period, so this build theme really matches its playstyle. Berserker Samurai has high Dexterity and Arcane, and a little Faith Stat, with access to attack and defense boosting spells as mentioned above, to improve its overall firepower and survivability. Pros & Cons Speaking of pros to this setup, aside from the insane damage output of this weapon and Ash of War, as mentioned before, Spinning Gravity Thrust makes it like a sitting duck as it makes the target flinch and nearly stuns them. Humanoid Types are pretty much powerless compared to this setup. And giant targets or bosses will definitely die faster than anything because of its jaw-dropping firepower and Bleed procs. However, every setup has its weaknesses and drawbacks, and Berserker Samurai is no exception. The first one I want to talk about is the obvious issue with Ash of War, which is that its long animations make you more vulnerable to attacks. Since you’re already in mid-air, you’ll be dodging ground attacks more often, but you’ll still take damage most of the time, especially if you’re still adjusting to Ash of War’s timing. While the idea is that you will take damage to deal massive damage to your opponent, if you over-abuse Spinning Gravity Thrust, 90% of the time it will result in your death. Ash of War has a very slow acceleration animation, so when you are facing fast-moving targets, you will find yourself often missing a lot of targets or hitting the air. The last thing I want to say about its disadvantages is that Spinning Gravity Thrust consumes a lot of Stamina. This means that you will be using up Stamina most of the time, especially when rushing to the target, which is the regular play style of this build. Gear Now that the basic play style and overview are over, let’s move on to the gear that Berserker Samurai needs. Main Weapon: Great Katana Let’s start with the chief weapon of this build, Great Katana. This Katana requires 14 Strength and 18 Dexterity to use effectively, and this time we will infuse it with Blood. In terms of scaling, it will have D for Strength, C for Dexterity, and lastly D for Arcane. Now this may seem bad, but trust me, this weapon is more than enough to wipe out an enemy in seconds. Weapon Skill: Spinning Gravity Thrust Moving on to the core of this build, Ash of War Spinning Gravity Thrust. This is one of the deadliest Ash of War I have seen so far. What it does is it lifts the user into the air and performs a violent multi-hitting spinning thrust attack that not only does a ton of damage per attack, but it also causes the target to flinch during the attack. In addition to its insane damage multipliers, you also trigger Bleeds when using Ash of War, which makes its damage even more insane. Pressing L2 allows you to fire Ash of War, and pressing L2 again after the first animation finishes will perform another set of animations, but the second set of animations will have a powerful Sweeping Finisher that will knock the target back. Secondary Weapon: Dragon Communion Seal Moving on to the secondary weapon of this build, I am using Dragon Communion Seal here in case we need to slot Arcane Scaling offensive Incantation later. I’m only using Seal for the attack buffs for this build, but you can definitely use any Seal you want as long as you have enough Elden Ring Runes. Spells With the weapons out of the way, let’s move on to the spells I recommend. The first 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. Talismans Next, let’s look at the best Talismans for this build. The first Talisman on the list is once again Shard of Alexander. This can increase skill damage by 15%, especially when performing Witching Hour Slash skill, so be sure to slot this one. Since we’re dealing with Bleed procs a lot with this build, I recommend using Lord of Blood’s Exultation. It will give you another 20% attack damage if blood loss procs are happening nearby. This happens all the time, so it will help you deal a ton of damage. Of course, since we’re dealing with fast multi-attacks, as usual, slotting in Millicent’s Prosthesis and Rotten Winged Sword Insignia is optimal for this build. You’ll always have the multi-attack buff active when performing Spinning Gravity Thrust, so make sure to prioritize these Talismans. However, I’ll have other Talisman suggestions later that will suit different combat situations. Armor Set Now that the main gear is done, let’s move on to the best Armor Set for Berserker Samurai. For this build, I’m wearing Land of Reeds Helm to preserve the identity of the build, in addition to using White Reed Armor and White Reed Gauntlets, and finally Land of Reeds Greaves. However, you can also choose to wear Rakshasa Set for a higher Attack Rating, as this Armor Set provides a damage boost overall. In summary, you can wear whatever you want, as long as you have about 51 poise, which is enough most of the time. Stats Then, let’s move on to Berserker Samurai’s stats. First, we start with Vigor, which I have assigned 60 points to. Since this build will be engaging enemies in melee combat, you will be taking damage quite often, so having 60 Vigor is essential for this build. Next is Mind, which I have assigned 20 points to. Now, you may find this quite low, especially with 26 FP required to use Spinning Gravity Thrust. However, enemies and bosses usually die quickly after 1 to 4 spins, so I don’t need more than that. In the event that the boss survives after 2 to 4 spins, you can also finish the fight by opening the flask easily. Next, talking about Endurance, I have assigned 30 points to it. Even though Spinning Gravity Thrust will drain your stamina in a few seconds, it’s actually OK to only have 30 points. As mentioned, enemies die very quickly. Then you also need to have at least 14 Strength to effectively wield Great Katana. Since Dexterity is our main stat for this build, I have allocated 75 points in total. And since we have equipped Millicent’s Prosthesis, it can even go up to 80. Next is Intelligence. We don’t need these, so it will be 10 points. Then Faith has been allocated 25 points, giving you access to the previously mentioned Flame Grant me Strength and Golden Vow. Finally, we have allocated 45 points to Arcane so that we can have more Attack Rating, while increasing our blood loss to 132 so that we can ensure that it triggers more often. Gameplay Now that the stats are taken care of, let’s move on to the gameplay and optimization tips for Berserker Samurai. Optimize Your Opener First, you need to optimize your opener as usual. Before or at the beginning of the battle, I usually cast Flame Grant me Strength and Golden Vow, and finally Bestial Vitality. Next, we can turn on Flask of Wondrous Physick for damage reduction and multi-attack boost. With all the buffs active, this build will be super aggressive and do as much damage as possible in this opening. Use Spinning Gravity Thrust Properly I know this build is a Berserker, however, if you miss Ash of War too many times as mentioned before, you will pay the price with death because of its overly long animation. Beyond that, you still need to master the timing of casting Ash of War. Unfortunately, getting good at it requires experience, and its usage varies from boss to boss. However, most of the time you will win the fight because of its damage output. Use Gear Wisely Now for the last tip, I recommend swapping Millicent’s Prosthesis for Crusade Insignia when exploring the overworld or dungeons, so that you can get a lasting buff while you’re on the landscape. Of course, if you think you need more protection, swap the aforementioned Talisman for Dragoncrest Greatshield. Berserker Samurai is a difficult Samurai build to master, and its satisfying violent thrusts can wipe out enemies in seconds. If you want to melt bosses with ease, don’t miss this guide. See you next time!