this post made me realize im supposed to be holding block while attacking, i was wondering why the hell everyone was saying these things were so good lmao
Yup, turtle up!
UPD: There are lots of people in comment section saying that Thrusting shields are bugged. Maybe they are or maybe that's the feature. But what most people do not realise is how strong shields with high guard boost + Greatshield Talisman are.
I made another NG+ run with Great shield + Poke. It was an even easier run than Thrusting shield one. Bottomline - poke mechanics is OP! And let me remind you - this stuff has been in the game from the very start
https://www.reddit.com/r/Eldenring/comments/1du6fr4/some_people_say_that_thrusting_shields_are_bugged/
UPD2 AFTER THE PATCH: Fixed a bug where successfully guarding while attacking using the Thrusting Shield weapon type would consume less stamina than intended.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Eldenring/comments/1dv5392/post_nerf_fix_thrusting_shield_vs_last_boss_ng_ok/
It’s insane. Got my main character up to the dlc (was on a ng+ still in limgrave) and because I’d already done most of the dlc on a fresh character I thought I’d try the bloodfiends arm as it’s early and see if it’s OP enough to destroy the first few bosses I’ve already beat. HOLY FUCK BRO IM NEVER SWAPPING!!! Lions claw on it stunlocks dancing lion in 2 L2 hits and with the bleed damage it doesn’t take a lot!
Literally melted Messmer dual wielding two of those bad boys!! Found the summon makes that fight harder, so I switched to str/arc bleed for that colossal arm!
Yeah, it is bugged with the blood affinity. Its scaling is nearly the same as an occult affinity. It is a clear oversight, but absolutely fun as hell. I swear, every time I am done doing an arcane build, i learn of some new busted weapon that makes me want to go back to bleeding fools like I am a 17th century doctor
Try the Sword Lance instead (Commander Gaius boss weapon). It has 121 bleed buildup if bleed infused, and I have like 9 arcane, and 54 str. And it STILL does more raw damage while bleed infused than heavy infused Great Epee on same build. It is insane.
Oh, and it is a heavy thrusting sword, so you can hit more often than with any great spear.
You can also do antspur rapier with cold/bleed/poison and hide behind a great shield to beat most every thing, combine with the new AoW The Poison Flower Blooms Twice on a poison infusion for some silliness whenever you get an opening. Defensive builds are eating very well with some of these new talismans/crystal tears.
Great Steel Shield and Blood Antspur helped me put down the final boss.
It was a good run with Fingerprint and Great Stars though. Most satisfactory with Gaius.
It lasts for five minutes. It’s stronger than a talisman as you don’t have to take up a slot for it, and pretty much no boss will take longer than that.
Ngl running Hand of Malenia with my mimic tear has trivialized maybe 80% of the content in this DLC. The sheer amount of DPS two waterfowl dances can output is insane. You still have to dodge obviously but swapping aggro with a waterfowl-happy mimic means relatively safe damage applied to the boss while its turned around. Waterfowl is also great for all those red cloaked messmer cultists because it staggers them.
I'm not saying it's the most efficient strategy, but I had a really satisfying Bayle kill with the final hit of a full waterfowl dance that procced the bleed for the kill. I'm not gonna top that high for awhile.
I haven't beat malenia. I played through with no summons prior but it's definitely time to swallow my pride cause these guys are tough even with using the scadu fragments. Thanks for the tips I might go in and blast her with my mimic and call it a day and try that!
Light attacks have block frames at the end and heavies at the start, it really is extremely versatile, especially in addition to being able to do block-pokes like thrusting weapons can
Yep. Add in great shield talisman to reduce stamina loss while blocking. Add in double turtle head for better stamina regen. Then dealers choice. You can go spear talisman for more damage. Mirror shield for better non physical damage block. Curved sword talisman for guard counters. Damage negation talismans.
Yep, its how I beat the final boss. Being able to guard counter to break poise while not worrying about timing and only taking chip damage is insane. Being able to just spam attacks and tank through everything only taking chip damage is insane. The stamina drain from attacking through attack seems really minimal even against massive boss attacks. And it's damage is really good as well, especially as its attacks are considered thrust and benefit from the spear talisman.
They're absolutely busted.
there's[ this video ](https://youtu.be/psdurMre7Zs?si=lA6lAmeEROEm48Kf&t=95)on youtube,it's deffinetly unintended,you lose less stamina while attacking than while standing still,you're rewarded for spamming the shield poke instead of managing your stamina
It's so stupid, they made a whole moveset for the weapon but the best way to play it is to spam a single attack over and over. It looks incredibly boring.
Hopefully they fix this in a patch and buff the actual attacks a bit.
I swear that's most equipment in the game though, look at the amount of strength weapons that spam jump heavies or lions claw, or the early days of rivers of blood spam, same with moonveil. I love the fancy movesets, but it's rare to see them in the wild
Just a shame there aren't more Light Great Swords. The Starlined Sword has no business being a Katana. Thing looks like a LGS through and through and its Ash fits the blade dance fantasy much better.
On the other hand you have the opposite situation in DS3 where the majority of Weapon Arts were just useless or barely any better than normal attacks.
I think they've just pushed these combat mechanics and what they can do with bosses to the limit, hopefully they do something new next like they did with Sekiro.
I say this as someone that loves FROM games: Optimized Souls games are really degenerate (Sekiro is the exception). They're not like a fighting game or Monster Hunter where really skillful play looks incredible.
Optimal Elden Ring play is a fat onion with a big rock for a shield poking the boss with a shit-smeared stick, or a butt naked man with 20 different particles effects glittering off them while they cartwheel around and stab things with a single poke from a 10 foot katana.
It's a dude in a dress with a weird ball for a head screaming until his eyes burst into flame and then staggering through the fog to hold R1 and blow a hole through reality with God's Kamehameha.
It's all very silly. Looking cool and being effective are basically antithetical in Souls games.
Help me understand something.. the new thrusting shields don’t have 100% physical defense. Why isn’t it better to have a greatshield + strong thrusting weapon?
The motion value (damage) on the dueling shield blocking poke is much better than a blocking thrusting weapon and these shields benefit from more buffs and talismans in general, notably the 2h sword talisman
From my understanding the shields drain less stamina while block attacking and simply win the poise trade against bosses. Also can be buffed with almost anything.
A few additional bits other than what others mentioned, its just much more versatile, its a full weapon moveset instead of just a single poke attack behind a shield and it blocks damage during most of its animations, including running attacks, charged heavy attacks, guard counters etc.
So for example against the final boss, you could stand there chipping away with shield pokes and a great shield OR instead I can land fully charged R2s while tanking through his hits and only taking chip damage and I can also guard and spam shield counters without getting knocked out of the animation so I can proc constant stance breaks and ripostes.
You know how the dlc has Talismans that are just better than the og versions? Now think about a certain green talisman, but instead of one, you now have 2 necks
Keep in mind unless something got patched last night they are currently bugged. When attacking you only ever lose the attack stamina and never any stamina from **getting** attacked, meaning they're essentially infinite blocks until your attack chain runs you out of stamina. They'll still be good after that gets fixed but don't expect them to stay this good forever, smoke 'em while you got 'em.
Once they get patched they'll be just a gimmicky and bad as valorheart and the carian knight sword.
While blocking as you attack seems good one paper it means that you're always risking a trade where the resource you risk is stamina which will usually always put you in disadvantage or at worse get yourself staggered+riposted.
God I want that Carian rapier to be fixed/buffed. Sword sorceries are by far my favorite way to play the game, having an actual sword you can use and have piercing thrust to get through blocks, deal actual stagger damage, and riposte with sound amazing. But as it is, it deals half the damage compared to just a Academy staff. Big sadge.
Nah, Carian Thrusting shield has 70 guard boost when infused with heavy, 94 physical damage reduction, and is compatible with barricade shield. Valorheart has 50 stability and 60 physical reduction.
Thrusting shields would have to be pretty significantly nerfed to reach Valorheart status.
They're talking about the carian knight sword. It does a block during the heavy attack that is actually secretly a useless trap to get you staggered and riposted because Fromsoft spends exactly ten seconds thinking these kinds of things out when they make them before spending the savings to focus on refining the next poisonous swamp.
i played with valorheart a ton in ds3 pvp and can confirm, even after dueling shields are fixed in a balance patch, they are still stronger in every way. better guard ability, more damage, better moveset, infusable means potential for much better weapon arts. even after the bug fix, it will be far far better than valorheart.
Thats a bonus for me, I wanna flex on these stupid bosses, and look stupid as possible while doing it.
Anyone ever see them old tapestries? Silly as fuck.
Tbh i have tried to make these things work but i cant seem to make them useful. Any tips on tailsmans and what buttons to press? I get smeared across the boss arena when I use it
You can R1 while guarding with L1 - the same as poke with great shield + spear. You do damage without getting damaged (almost). The main trick is to manage your stamina (stamina-related wondrous flask works great!)
The only mandatory talisman I’ve been using is Shield Talisman. Other three are variable depending on the boss.
Would the spear talisman work? I'm guessing the attacks are thrusting attacks and since you can attack while the enemies are attacking then it's a solid 15% attack boost, put that with the 2h damage talisman.
Sometimes I do, yes. But Barricade overwrites enchantments, so it’s not that optimal - against some bosses you really want that frost or rot enchantment
Well with the bug you might be able to ignore it by just block attacking during the charge. But He can also hit you through your shield. Had this happen with him, renalla and messmer. They move so much that you can get hit before your model is repositionned.
Pretty sure it's the bug with thrusting shields where you take no stamina damage from blocking as long as you are attacking. The only stamina that's spent is the cost for attacking, not blocking.
Shield Talisman is really good!
Base guard boost at +25 is 76.8
Also there is wondrous flask that completely negates stamina loss (well, some bosses attacks still chip out stamina even with this flask) - usually I use them before bursting down the boss. In case with Radahn - the whole first phase was with that flask effect. Second phase attacks are flashy but not that stamina draining. Previously I’ve tried Moor’s great shield - you almost don’t lose stamina at all from Radahn’s attacks
You can, but the difference is your attacks consume more stamina IIRC, and the major benefit is you get two-handed benefits with the thrusting shield, so your strength goes up and you can use the new Talisman. So your damage is likely higher even with less stat investment.
I guess equip load is also a big difference. Now I'm bummed by not having tried the trusting shields, I completely minced the DLC with Lance+Fingerprint (and upgraded to boar lance and chubby bro shield), and having something even more broken would've been so much fun.
Both of these are bugged lol, the perfume bottle especially. The weapons itself are fairly whatever, but the Rolling Sparks ash of war is incredibly broken, since you can free aim it at the ground and have every single hit from it land in the boss, melting them.
Lol. so you just hold L1 to block and tap away on R1 to attack and you're more or less invincible? this is great. I've been stuck at the end boss for like 4 days. I don't mind trying this at this point.
I did a meme run where I beat the game by 2handing the fingerprint stone shield. No AoW, just R1’s and R2’s.
It was decently challenging. Malenia was tough.
When they announced this weapon type I was excited because it was like they heard my prayers for “shields as a weapon”.
This seems a little broken though!
I specially like the running R2 because it lets you push through all sorts of shit for a shit time, you charge against a Dragon’s fire breath with it and it’s the hypest shit ever.
For sure the easiest most solid way of easy winning but personally I would rather play Farming Simulator than playing Elden Ring spamming shield bashes; i like more frenetic, dynamic playstyles. That's just my preference though, if you enjoy it, it's perfect!
That's what I do too. First time I go in without shields or summons. Second time I use fun things and things which are OP. The only exception to this rule had been the final boss of the DLC. I beat him with a shield the first time because I got stuck and annoyed by the fight. Killed him without on the second time around.
I'm trying to get him without a shield this second go around on an arcane primarily kungfu build and boy, shields make it easy. As does a weapon with literally any reach, as I'm having a hard time not wiffing kicks between his leg, his hitbox seems a little jank for that, kinda like the Erdtree Avatars and fist weapons.
Saw this for the first time in the coliseum. Dude was wearing full bull goat and just kept doing the one move with a bleed shield. It wasn't the most fun thing to fight against.
Ngl it's weird that using thrusting shields this way consumes way less stamina than using a regular shield + rapier/spear, feels like it's not intended to be that way
+25 Carian Thrusting shield
60 vigor (kekw)
As much as you can invest in endurance without hurting your other stats
Anything else is irrelevant - you can go full STR and make shield Heavy affinity, you can go full Arcane and make Blood affinity, etc. It scales great with any affinity and can be used on any character without doing stat reset! Just slap affinity that suits your build and you are ready to go.
Shield Talisman is a must
Turtle Talisman (or double headed from DLC) - is a very solid choice as well
Other talisman slots are variable depending on what boss you fight
They are probably second to the perfumers bottle. With the perfumers bottle I go “for my next trick I’ll make the bosses health bar disappear!” Followed by many ooooohs and aaaaaahs “where’d it go!? Gone before your very eyes”
I hadn't done any research but when I got the other one I immediately made my own build with it. Such a cool weapon lol, my friends were all so pissed when I beat the final boss on my 4th attempt. I wouldn't be surprised if the guard boost/damage negation got changed a bit while In that attack animation, it is quite busted to be able to block that much damage during an attack. Combine this weapon with the new unlimited stamina physic, two hand talisman, double necked turtle, and whatever other talismans suit your style and you have an absolutely nasty build. Also the ash of war that cuts stamina loss from blocking makes it even better.
I hybridized this build with my original cross-naginata build which I swap to if I need more range, and I put giants hunt on it for bosses that stagger easier. If you can get a stagger off, and pop the physick, you can just sit there and chip health
Man I was kinda mad to find out this dlc would of been 100x easier if I just used a shield. It felt almost like a dark souls dlc instead of Elden Ring at times, beat the DLC mostly with dry leaf arts but the final boss broke me into changing my build which annoyed me
THANK YOU SO MUCH
I tried every other cheesy method for radahn, respecced probably 10 times, nothing was working. Didn’t help that I went in with a ng+4 character and apparently RL 248 is underleveled at that point.
But this+impenetrable thorns+bloodfiends arm FINALLY got me through him
Ya I tried it out and after like 20 minutes all my fear of going into random new dungeons and bosses just went away completely. I took gaius on first attempt without even using any flasks or summons. These shields actually trivialize the game
I was getting absolutely fucking *throttled* by the last boss using star fists. I just couldn't get any progress in the 2nd phase. I decided to give that shield a go and killed it on my 3rd try after switching. I think I rolled twice the entire time lol, insanely fun and ridiculously powerful weapon.
this post made me realize im supposed to be holding block while attacking, i was wondering why the hell everyone was saying these things were so good lmao
Yup, turtle up! UPD: There are lots of people in comment section saying that Thrusting shields are bugged. Maybe they are or maybe that's the feature. But what most people do not realise is how strong shields with high guard boost + Greatshield Talisman are. I made another NG+ run with Great shield + Poke. It was an even easier run than Thrusting shield one. Bottomline - poke mechanics is OP! And let me remind you - this stuff has been in the game from the very start https://www.reddit.com/r/Eldenring/comments/1du6fr4/some_people_say_that_thrusting_shields_are_bugged/ UPD2 AFTER THE PATCH: Fixed a bug where successfully guarding while attacking using the Thrusting Shield weapon type would consume less stamina than intended. https://www.reddit.com/r/Eldenring/comments/1dv5392/post_nerf_fix_thrusting_shield_vs_last_boss_ng_ok/
Cross Naginata shield poke is OP AF in the DLC. Most bosses can be bleed+cold poked to death. Specially with the new sekiro tear
I would like to add blood affinity lance is also insane. 132 build up at 50 arcane. Though bleed & cold mix is hard to turn down.
The Bloodfiend leg weapon gets like 219 at 60 Arcane I think. Damn thing can one-shot bleed other players on a single heavy attack
I'm sorry, 219?? I think I need to switch over
Yeah it's stupid tbh. If you want details, Chasethebro posted a video on YouTube showing it off
It’s insane. Got my main character up to the dlc (was on a ng+ still in limgrave) and because I’d already done most of the dlc on a fresh character I thought I’d try the bloodfiends arm as it’s early and see if it’s OP enough to destroy the first few bosses I’ve already beat. HOLY FUCK BRO IM NEVER SWAPPING!!! Lions claw on it stunlocks dancing lion in 2 L2 hits and with the bleed damage it doesn’t take a lot!
Literally melted Messmer dual wielding two of those bad boys!! Found the summon makes that fight harder, so I switched to str/arc bleed for that colossal arm!
Double wheel skeleton shield build is back, baby!
Mines at 223
Yeah, it is bugged with the blood affinity. Its scaling is nearly the same as an occult affinity. It is a clear oversight, but absolutely fun as hell. I swear, every time I am done doing an arcane build, i learn of some new busted weapon that makes me want to go back to bleeding fools like I am a 17th century doctor
Try the Sword Lance instead (Commander Gaius boss weapon). It has 121 bleed buildup if bleed infused, and I have like 9 arcane, and 54 str. And it STILL does more raw damage while bleed infused than heavy infused Great Epee on same build. It is insane. Oh, and it is a heavy thrusting sword, so you can hit more often than with any great spear.
Which one is the sekiro talisman?
Is not a talisman, he means the deflecting tear
Ohh my bad… I could have swore i read talisman🤣🤣
You did, OC edited their comment
You can also do antspur rapier with cold/bleed/poison and hide behind a great shield to beat most every thing, combine with the new AoW The Poison Flower Blooms Twice on a poison infusion for some silliness whenever you get an opening. Defensive builds are eating very well with some of these new talismans/crystal tears.
Great Steel Shield and Blood Antspur helped me put down the final boss. It was a good run with Fingerprint and Great Stars though. Most satisfactory with Gaius.
You mean the tear that should have been a talisman
I think its way too strong to be a talisman, specially when stacked on a +25 shield AND the guarding boost talisman.
It lasts for five minutes. It’s stronger than a talisman as you don’t have to take up a slot for it, and pretty much no boss will take longer than that.
Most of the physik buffs are also available in talismans. I would've liked the option for both.
Honestly man, perfect blocking should've just been a mechanic in the game.
I guess that’s fair, how long does the tear last though?
Like forever and a half. (I think 3 minutes)
5 minutes*
Honestly I never used shields and I am about to. Rellana and the lion have been messing me up
Better get the practice in now then cause there's definitely some more brutal bosses out there that make me consider using this method.
Ngl running Hand of Malenia with my mimic tear has trivialized maybe 80% of the content in this DLC. The sheer amount of DPS two waterfowl dances can output is insane. You still have to dodge obviously but swapping aggro with a waterfowl-happy mimic means relatively safe damage applied to the boss while its turned around. Waterfowl is also great for all those red cloaked messmer cultists because it staggers them. I'm not saying it's the most efficient strategy, but I had a really satisfying Bayle kill with the final hit of a full waterfowl dance that procced the bleed for the kill. I'm not gonna top that high for awhile.
I haven't beat malenia. I played through with no summons prior but it's definitely time to swallow my pride cause these guys are tough even with using the scadu fragments. Thanks for the tips I might go in and blast her with my mimic and call it a day and try that!
Well to be fair, the shield can block attacks even with regular attacks, just less frequently.
To be faaaaiirrrrr
I saw a video that if you delay the next swing you can full on block a hit mid combo
Light attacks have block frames at the end and heavies at the start, it really is extremely versatile, especially in addition to being able to do block-pokes like thrusting weapons can
And if you delay attacks, the in-between pose will also count as a block so you can play around with the timing a bit more.
If you delay between light attacks you enter a block stance for a moment, and the charge up for heavies also counts as blocking
They’re basically guard points from Monster Hunter, is what I tell myself
So hold L1 and spam R1? On PlayStation controller that is
Yep. Add in great shield talisman to reduce stamina loss while blocking. Add in double turtle head for better stamina regen. Then dealers choice. You can go spear talisman for more damage. Mirror shield for better non physical damage block. Curved sword talisman for guard counters. Damage negation talismans.
I just did this with the shield at +19 and melted Messmer! Thank you!
Never give up, skeleton.
Goop horse too
damn, me too, shield poking on another level
I think for Gaius I only let block go off for 2 seconds and it was an accident. For Messmer I had to rebuff cragblade.
Patches is that you, you bald motherfucker?!
What are you, some kind of cleric?
*looks at 80 faith stat* **[Yes]** [No]
Yeeted into a hole with 6 royal revenants
Not a problem to a cleric, though
This guy doesn't know what he's talking about, we in the DLC now. Yeeted into a hole with six lion knights.
That's hits different if they are ready to attack or just spawning after you landed.
hehe
Unbreakable
Cheesing the boss with a broken unbalanced shield seems something Patches would do
Yep, its how I beat the final boss. Being able to guard counter to break poise while not worrying about timing and only taking chip damage is insane. Being able to just spam attacks and tank through everything only taking chip damage is insane. The stamina drain from attacking through attack seems really minimal even against massive boss attacks. And it's damage is really good as well, especially as its attacks are considered thrust and benefit from the spear talisman. They're absolutely busted.
there's[ this video ](https://youtu.be/psdurMre7Zs?si=lA6lAmeEROEm48Kf&t=95)on youtube,it's deffinetly unintended,you lose less stamina while attacking than while standing still,you're rewarded for spamming the shield poke instead of managing your stamina
It's so stupid, they made a whole moveset for the weapon but the best way to play it is to spam a single attack over and over. It looks incredibly boring. Hopefully they fix this in a patch and buff the actual attacks a bit.
I swear that's most equipment in the game though, look at the amount of strength weapons that spam jump heavies or lions claw, or the early days of rivers of blood spam, same with moonveil. I love the fancy movesets, but it's rare to see them in the wild
Milady is certainly delivering on the fancy movesets at least, and works real well with various ashes
I can't help but return to milady on pretty much everything I'm building character wise. It's flashy, functional and versatile, such a good weapon
Just a shame there aren't more Light Great Swords. The Starlined Sword has no business being a Katana. Thing looks like a LGS through and through and its Ash fits the blade dance fantasy much better.
That's mostly because ashes of war as a whole are incredibly overtuned.
On the other hand you have the opposite situation in DS3 where the majority of Weapon Arts were just useless or barely any better than normal attacks. I think they've just pushed these combat mechanics and what they can do with bosses to the limit, hopefully they do something new next like they did with Sekiro.
I say this as someone that loves FROM games: Optimized Souls games are really degenerate (Sekiro is the exception). They're not like a fighting game or Monster Hunter where really skillful play looks incredible. Optimal Elden Ring play is a fat onion with a big rock for a shield poking the boss with a shit-smeared stick, or a butt naked man with 20 different particles effects glittering off them while they cartwheel around and stab things with a single poke from a 10 foot katana. It's a dude in a dress with a weird ball for a head screaming until his eyes burst into flame and then staggering through the fog to hold R1 and blow a hole through reality with God's Kamehameha. It's all very silly. Looking cool and being effective are basically antithetical in Souls games.
What shield? Please help my controller cant take much more abuse from me
There's 2 in the DLC. Both found in the shadow keep
Help me understand something.. the new thrusting shields don’t have 100% physical defense. Why isn’t it better to have a greatshield + strong thrusting weapon?
The motion value (damage) on the dueling shield blocking poke is much better than a blocking thrusting weapon and these shields benefit from more buffs and talismans in general, notably the 2h sword talisman
From my understanding the shields drain less stamina while block attacking and simply win the poise trade against bosses. Also can be buffed with almost anything.
A few additional bits other than what others mentioned, its just much more versatile, its a full weapon moveset instead of just a single poke attack behind a shield and it blocks damage during most of its animations, including running attacks, charged heavy attacks, guard counters etc. So for example against the final boss, you could stand there chipping away with shield pokes and a great shield OR instead I can land fully charged R2s while tanking through his hits and only taking chip damage and I can also guard and spam shield counters without getting knocked out of the animation so I can proc constant stance breaks and ripostes.
Same here!!
greatshield talisman, two-handed talisman, spear talisman, double turtle talisman. it just slaps. edit: add the double to the turtle talisman 😏
Would reccomend the >!Double turtle talisman!<
The fucking wat
It's like the original, but twice the turtleness.
The double dog
Can now add well-pickled dog for extra flavour.
You know how the dlc has Talismans that are just better than the og versions? Now think about a certain green talisman, but instead of one, you now have 2 necks
That's like twice the turtle.
What Ash of war should I put on it? I’ve never infused a weapon before
Keep in mind unless something got patched last night they are currently bugged. When attacking you only ever lose the attack stamina and never any stamina from **getting** attacked, meaning they're essentially infinite blocks until your attack chain runs you out of stamina. They'll still be good after that gets fixed but don't expect them to stay this good forever, smoke 'em while you got 'em.
Once they get patched they'll be just a gimmicky and bad as valorheart and the carian knight sword. While blocking as you attack seems good one paper it means that you're always risking a trade where the resource you risk is stamina which will usually always put you in disadvantage or at worse get yourself staggered+riposted.
God I want that Carian rapier to be fixed/buffed. Sword sorceries are by far my favorite way to play the game, having an actual sword you can use and have piercing thrust to get through blocks, deal actual stagger damage, and riposte with sound amazing. But as it is, it deals half the damage compared to just a Academy staff. Big sadge.
Nah, Carian Thrusting shield has 70 guard boost when infused with heavy, 94 physical damage reduction, and is compatible with barricade shield. Valorheart has 50 stability and 60 physical reduction. Thrusting shields would have to be pretty significantly nerfed to reach Valorheart status.
They're talking about the carian knight sword. It does a block during the heavy attack that is actually secretly a useless trap to get you staggered and riposted because Fromsoft spends exactly ten seconds thinking these kinds of things out when they make them before spending the savings to focus on refining the next poisonous swamp.
i played with valorheart a ton in ds3 pvp and can confirm, even after dueling shields are fixed in a balance patch, they are still stronger in every way. better guard ability, more damage, better moveset, infusable means potential for much better weapon arts. even after the bug fix, it will be far far better than valorheart.
So nice to see brother patches dominating the battlefield with his creative exploits.
👨🦲❤️
This time he didn't ran away from Radahn
counterpoint it looks extremely goofy
Thats a bonus for me, I wanna flex on these stupid bosses, and look stupid as possible while doing it. Anyone ever see them old tapestries? Silly as fuck.
It's a problem with me but I can't use them because they look so dumb lol
It felt like "hip thrusting" rather than shield thrusting lol.
I think you mean SICK AS FUCK
Tbh i have tried to make these things work but i cant seem to make them useful. Any tips on tailsmans and what buttons to press? I get smeared across the boss arena when I use it
You can R1 while guarding with L1 - the same as poke with great shield + spear. You do damage without getting damaged (almost). The main trick is to manage your stamina (stamina-related wondrous flask works great!) The only mandatory talisman I’ve been using is Shield Talisman. Other three are variable depending on the boss.
2 headed turtle talisman is probably worth the slot also
Indeed!
Would the spear talisman work? I'm guessing the attacks are thrusting attacks and since you can attack while the enemies are attacking then it's a solid 15% attack boost, put that with the 2h damage talisman.
Yeah it would
I can block and poke at the same time…
the thrusting shields take no stamina penalty on dmg taken when block-attacking for.... some reason. Also they hit rather hard being 2handed
Yeah because they are bugged. You take 0 stamina damage from blocked attacks if you are attacking *while* blocking
Is this the int shield that you’re using? I found two thrusting shields, and want to try this out, just not sure if there’s more (shields) in DLC.
The Carian one, yes! But you can put any affinity you like via AoW. I’m using Heavy with str scaling!
I see you using barricade, and probably the best choice for this style of fighting. This is gonna be fun
Sometimes I do, yes. But Barricade overwrites enchantments, so it’s not that optimal - against some bosses you really want that frost or rot enchantment
Nah Scholar's Shield, since barricade only lasts like 2 seconds. That spell went from useless to top tier thanks to this shield
Spell was always strong, problem was needing to mainhand your staff to use it.
how did you barely take any stamina reduction against radahn?
it's basically bugged and if you attack while blocking you lose LESS stamina than if you just block
So that's why i was getting my ass kicked trying this yesterday. I was trying to manage my stamina.
You still need to manage. Specially for Gaius because the charge takes almost your whole bar.
Well with the bug you might be able to ignore it by just block attacking during the charge. But He can also hit you through your shield. Had this happen with him, renalla and messmer. They move so much that you can get hit before your model is repositionned.
Pretty sure it's the bug with thrusting shields where you take no stamina damage from blocking as long as you are attacking. The only stamina that's spent is the cost for attacking, not blocking.
Shield Talisman is really good! Base guard boost at +25 is 76.8 Also there is wondrous flask that completely negates stamina loss (well, some bosses attacks still chip out stamina even with this flask) - usually I use them before bursting down the boss. In case with Radahn - the whole first phase was with that flask effect. Second phase attacks are flashy but not that stamina draining. Previously I’ve tried Moor’s great shield - you almost don’t lose stamina at all from Radahn’s attacks
Pretty sure buffed perfume bottles are. 1-2 shot everything in the game
I have the feeling that you can achieve this with any kind of great shield + spear
You can, but the difference is your attacks consume more stamina IIRC, and the major benefit is you get two-handed benefits with the thrusting shield, so your strength goes up and you can use the new Talisman. So your damage is likely higher even with less stat investment.
I guess equip load is also a big difference. Now I'm bummed by not having tried the trusting shields, I completely minced the DLC with Lance+Fingerprint (and upgraded to boar lance and chubby bro shield), and having something even more broken would've been so much fun.
gaius' lance is bonkers on heavy affinity and str build. it has more damage than heavy zweihander with far quicker attacks and ability to shieldpoke.
I thought so too then I saw someone two shot Radahn with the lightning perfume bottle.
Both of these are bugged lol, the perfume bottle especially. The weapons itself are fairly whatever, but the Rolling Sparks ash of war is incredibly broken, since you can free aim it at the ground and have every single hit from it land in the boss, melting them.
Honey, the new brain-dead spam r1 build just dropped!
Bro are you Patches?! Makes the shield even better lol
Why you ask? You are not a cleric, right?
Lol. so you just hold L1 to block and tap away on R1 to attack and you're more or less invincible? this is great. I've been stuck at the end boss for like 4 days. I don't mind trying this at this point.
More or less!
He's very hard without a shield, but a complete push-over with one. You'll easily kill him with any decent shield.
Apparently not, because that’s exactly what I’m doing and I keep dying.
Kinda sad that there are just 2 thrusting shields in the Entire DLC These things are ao GOOD lmao
IKR! I would love to have more than two
I did a meme run where I beat the game by 2handing the fingerprint stone shield. No AoW, just R1’s and R2’s. It was decently challenging. Malenia was tough. When they announced this weapon type I was excited because it was like they heard my prayers for “shields as a weapon”. This seems a little broken though!
I specially like the running R2 because it lets you push through all sorts of shit for a shit time, you charge against a Dragon’s fire breath with it and it’s the hypest shit ever.
Rolling sparks in its current state beats this. Simply two shot every boss.
This play style does not look fun to me.
For sure the easiest most solid way of easy winning but personally I would rather play Farming Simulator than playing Elden Ring spamming shield bashes; i like more frenetic, dynamic playstyles. That's just my preference though, if you enjoy it, it's perfect!
First playthrough of any Froms game I always play fair and square. All subsequent - I only care about shenanigans.
The Patches cosplay does give that impression pretty clearly.
That's what I do too. First time I go in without shields or summons. Second time I use fun things and things which are OP. The only exception to this rule had been the final boss of the DLC. I beat him with a shield the first time because I got stuck and annoyed by the fight. Killed him without on the second time around.
I'm trying to get him without a shield this second go around on an arcane primarily kungfu build and boy, shields make it easy. As does a weapon with literally any reach, as I'm having a hard time not wiffing kicks between his leg, his hitbox seems a little jank for that, kinda like the Erdtree Avatars and fist weapons.
Idk man, sometimes it’s just really fun to annihilate bosses, give them a taste of their own medicine y’know.
“Best weapon and it’s not even close” that’s funny when the lighting perfume bottle can drop 30k damage in like 2 seconds one shotting bosses
Captain america it is then
Can you powerstance them?
NO :(
Expansion is too hard guys... Wait what is this pokey shield thing....
Definitely not even close to the strongest weapons in the game when the lightning perfume bottle exists lol
Hm, alright, that's cool to know for my shield only.
Saw this for the first time in the coliseum. Dude was wearing full bull goat and just kept doing the one move with a bleed shield. It wasn't the most fun thing to fight against.
Ngl it's weird that using thrusting shields this way consumes way less stamina than using a regular shield + rapier/spear, feels like it's not intended to be that way
Well, you hold and swing twice less weight....D:
Would you kindly share your build?
+25 Carian Thrusting shield 60 vigor (kekw) As much as you can invest in endurance without hurting your other stats Anything else is irrelevant - you can go full STR and make shield Heavy affinity, you can go full Arcane and make Blood affinity, etc. It scales great with any affinity and can be used on any character without doing stat reset! Just slap affinity that suits your build and you are ready to go. Shield Talisman is a must Turtle Talisman (or double headed from DLC) - is a very solid choice as well Other talisman slots are variable depending on what boss you fight
They are probably second to the perfumers bottle. With the perfumers bottle I go “for my next trick I’ll make the bosses health bar disappear!” Followed by many ooooohs and aaaaaahs “where’d it go!? Gone before your very eyes”
This is gonna be the new "rivers of blood noob weapon" in a week or two on this sub, isn't it?
but theyre just so damned ugly. I hate how they look.
Aesthetically I think they're goofy looking and that's why I won't use them
Naofumi would be proud as hell
The most braindead PvE strat from has ever introduced to the game lol.
They are for sure getting nerf/bug fixed though. They are mega broken because you don’t lose basically any stamina for blocking hits while attacking
Always wanted to try a shield 🛡 hope fun stuff will still be around for awhile
What kind of affinity does this one have in the video?
Op, why are you playing as Patches?
Why do you ask? Are you a cleric?
Looks so fun 😐
Motherfucker is tanking everything lmao. It’s like fingerprint shield and dark sword was combined
Came for the Radahn destruction and I was not disappointed. Thank you Sir Patches! (Omg I can't believe I'm saying that)
Thrusty Patches.
It's just bug. I'm sure, stamina consumption while you attack and get hit will be patched soon.
Time to create a "shield hero" character
Thanks for the sales pitch, Patches.
Patches?
Between these and the broken perfume bottle build there is no reason anyone can't beat the DLC.
I think I saw your ghost earlier while I died for the nth time to Messmer, the attacking animation made me chuckle 😂
I had one dropped for me in NG cause I wanted to start the game with one. What a cake walk! They are so good
I love the thrusting shield, and you tell me there is more than one???!
i do not understand what is happening? Does the shield block and do damage at the same time?
Oh my God! A way to deal with that absolute fuckhead, Gaius! YES!
I mean shield poking is already op. Thrusting shields are shield and poke in one
If it needs to be in the right hand to attack, does that mean you have two-hand it to also block?
Yes, you two-hand the bastard!
Bro beat Radahn to death with a cookie sheet pan.
I hadn't done any research but when I got the other one I immediately made my own build with it. Such a cool weapon lol, my friends were all so pissed when I beat the final boss on my 4th attempt. I wouldn't be surprised if the guard boost/damage negation got changed a bit while In that attack animation, it is quite busted to be able to block that much damage during an attack. Combine this weapon with the new unlimited stamina physic, two hand talisman, double necked turtle, and whatever other talismans suit your style and you have an absolutely nasty build. Also the ash of war that cuts stamina loss from blocking makes it even better. I hybridized this build with my original cross-naginata build which I swap to if I need more range, and I put giants hunt on it for bosses that stagger easier. If you can get a stagger off, and pop the physick, you can just sit there and chip health
That unbreakable bastard... patches ... he even broke the DLC
Man I was kinda mad to find out this dlc would of been 100x easier if I just used a shield. It felt almost like a dark souls dlc instead of Elden Ring at times, beat the DLC mostly with dry leaf arts but the final boss broke me into changing my build which annoyed me
Bro I picked up the shield yesterday and was like “wtf would I need a thrusting shield?” Well you’ve shown me the way now.
THANK YOU SO MUCH I tried every other cheesy method for radahn, respecced probably 10 times, nothing was working. Didn’t help that I went in with a ng+4 character and apparently RL 248 is underleveled at that point. But this+impenetrable thorns+bloodfiends arm FINALLY got me through him
Because of you i finally made it and even got the gesture from miquella 🫶🏼 not that easy getting grapped twice
Ya I tried it out and after like 20 minutes all my fear of going into random new dungeons and bosses just went away completely. I took gaius on first attempt without even using any flasks or summons. These shields actually trivialize the game
Just beat the final boss this morning with this strat. Many thanks tarnished! Sincerely, I was losing it for a minute.
Don’t think I’ve forgot about that time you pushed me off the fucken cliff you bald mf
Is this how I realize Bayle was missing one of his legs this whole time lmao dude is a beast
just cheesed radahn first try with this build, thanks!
Pretty sure they will be patched tho. The part where you don't use stamina while blocking seems highly unintentional
Patches gets revenge.
I was getting absolutely fucking *throttled* by the last boss using star fists. I just couldn't get any progress in the 2nd phase. I decided to give that shield a go and killed it on my 3rd try after switching. I think I rolled twice the entire time lol, insanely fun and ridiculously powerful weapon.
And then 48 hours after this post, they got nerfed. 😂 They are still good, you just lose the normal amount of stamina when block-attacking now.