Few questions to anybody who wants to hold my hand a little bit about Elden Ring:
How true is it that the game favors magic builds, how screwed am I if I always go for strength/melee builds, and in any case what are some good spells and/or weapons to get early? I'm assuming stats and character classes don't matter much, but anything important I need to know about these? Also what's a good starting gift?
After that I know it's an open world and the point is to pick a direction and go in blind, but don't want to shoot myself in the foot early.
I played ER twice:
The first time I started with magic because the animations for it in the trailers looked so cool. I found it to be a major struggle. My two problems with magic in this game are:
1- There are a LOT of enemies, and they move faster than in original Dark Souls, so it's harder for me to manage all the enemies and space while trying to zap them from a distance. You can chalk this up to my own issues as a gamer- I also had to start Mass Effect over as a melee focused player in order to get into that, for example.
ER enemies are twitchy and fast- at least for me, others don't have this problem. But magic means ranged combat mostly and locking on and when you're out in the open world you can lock onto a mosquito or the wrong soldier and man it just messed my shit up.
2- The second major area, Lurnia, is centered around magic, and the big boss at the end is a sorceress and therefore highly resistant to magic. It can make it harder.
People say magic is easy or OP I think because you can play ranged and I guess they don't have the issues I have with that, but also I think it's a hold over from the early games- an idea I also disagree with, for what it's worth. But I am playing Demons Souls remake now with a magic build to see if I can disabuse myself of this notion. It is more effective there but that is due to level design and enemy placement.
During that first playthrough, I switched to a bleed build and then back forth between bleed and magic to get through the end game as needed. There are re-spec items but they are rare and limited.
The second time I played as a strength tank with hammer weapons and I breezed through the game. Stagger effect is very powerful and feels good. You can chalk up the easier playthrough simply to me having learned the game in the first run and that's fair enough, but I really do think simply running up and smashing a muthafucka up the head is the most practical and efficient way of dealing with most problems in these games. For all the mystique and complexity and analysis FromSoftware garners, these are simple stupid games that you win by hitting everything.
If you want to continue with a magic build, the most important thing to understand is that there are two kinds of magic- there's like sorcerer type of magic, which are the blue spells, and faith based magic- this is like holy or paladin kind- which are the yellow, orange, and black spells. IIRC it's Intelligence stat to power up the first kind and Faith to power up the second- so pick one and ignore the other.
The most important tip is to not be ashamed to look up stuff. These games are stupidly obtuse and if you waste currency into the wrong stats you'll be miserable. Each magic kind has an important NPC you'll want to find and help out.
I wouldn't worry about specific weapons or gear at the start. Here is where I fundamentally disagree with a lot of tips and starter guides that tell you to sprint to some far away location to get some weapon that will make you "OP." This is horrible advice for a new player. Rather, stay in the starting area- which is already huge- and explore it thoroughly. Focus on leveling up your character with the runes you earn. No matter what class or play style you go with, leveling up health is always good. I would argue in ER it's absolutely necessary- "glass cannon" builds are for experts and streamers. ER enemies get absolutely brutal later on and will two-shot you.
So like if you're playing a sorcerer blue-spell style mage, level up health and Int, find and rescue the related sorceress NPC, find the towers that give you extra spell slots, buy some spells, and just explore and kill stuff. Then there's Stormveil castle which is like whole other world, and the bosses in and around it. You can do this all with your starting gear.
Then you can look up recommended weapons if you like or whatever and if you do this after playing for a while you can get a sense which ones are worth going out of your way for because they have different move sets. For example, a lot of people like spears and poles and I could never figure out how to be comfortable with them. Then if you find a weapon you like you can focus on your character leveling to make that weapon more effective. You may find you'll need a few more points in some stat you haven't been leveling like Strength or Dex and that's fine, but do NOT waste time trying to catch up to some weapon way out of your character. Like if you're a mage, then greatswords and large shields are not for you. Bows and arrows are not worth it because you need Dex and you have ranged with your spells.
Remember that the more you level up, the more runes each subsequent leveling requires! Don't waste 10 levels on strength if you're a mage.
For weapons, scaling is the most important. Scaling is how you character stats effect weapon stats. This is the key to upgrading your character. A sword that scales more with strength means that the higher your strength, the more effective the sword. Plus of course you upgrade the weapon directly with upgrade items which are rare so it's another reason to get comfortable with the basics before trying to commit to a "build" early on.
Most weapons scale with strength and/or dex but there are some that scale with int or faith, too.
Sorry this post is long but it's because a lot of advice out there especially on youtube is highly specific and I think that is a disservice. For example you will find a common thing is to get the Moonlight Katana sword. This is a sword that has magic abilities so it's a logically desirable weapon for a magic user. Problem is it's in another area and you have to beat a tough boss to get it, so you'll spend so much time and frustration just getting this damn weapon. This is not fun and not worth it when you can be exploring and getting better- both as a player and by leveling up your stats. This whole approach to the game where people run hither and thither getting "OP" is for return players not newbies, IMO.
