I'm missing 3 scadutree fragments....
My blessing lvl is 19.....
Someone help me.....
Edit: I unintentionally started a reddit orgy.....not that I'm complaining but as long as everyone's wearing socks.
[https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/elden-ring-shadow-of-the-erdtree-scadutree-fragment-locations](https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/elden-ring-shadow-of-the-erdtree-scadutree-fragment-locations)
I used this to find my last few fragments!
I'd recommend a YouTube vid, the verticality of the map makes using an article to find them so much harder.
https://youtu.be/WE03ubcPoa4?si=vmXIWkC_znyJnz-c
And there is a bug where if you kill one of the pot guys and die before you pick up the item, it doesn't respawn, locking you at upgrade 19, happened to me and seemingly a lot of other people. Wont get level 20 until ng+, but I'm almost at final boss and 19 has felt like plenty.
This is kind of stupid, considering some of them are \*quite\* tough to get to. Should've been more than you need, that's usually the case with these things. Not sure why From decided to make it this way
god damn, apparently after beating gaius, i was so enamored by the bigass bowl and the tree behind it that i missed 5 glowing bits right in front of it
You just made me feel so much better and encouraged me to get back in there and explore the region more.
>!Radahn!< Has been absolutely gaping my asshole but I went in with ScaduX12 and 2 regions unexplored. I did not realise it could get that high and assumed it capped at +15 or something
Find a guide and go to all the places including the ones you are 100% sure you have been to.
Also in fextralife, they seem to only have found 50? I'd wait until someone found all 52.
Level 20 scadutree blessing, still being 2-3 shot by the final boss with as much defense i can put on my body or just outright dying if caught in one of his comboās
I use Golden Vow, Blessing of the Erdtree and Boiled Prawn in addition to the big physical damage negation talisman you get from Haligtree, the talisman that boosts defense at max HP, and the two sword girls armor from the DLC.
I also use those two incants, running 60 vigor with dragoncrest gs, pearldrake +3, good armor, and the opaline hardtear, my resistances are literally above 70 and im still getting torn apart if i get caught in a single combo of his.
i was at my sisters place watching her boyfriend fight >!rellana!< at rl 173, with 32 vig and scadu lvl 1. she told me hes been fighting her all day and yesterday lol. i dont like backseating ppl, but when he offered me the controller i said "no thanks, i dont feel comfortable with low health" lol
I've been flying the "40 vig is fine" flag through the base game, I took a big bite of the old humble pie and respec to 60 after around the 3rd boss I think. It was getting worse than my lvl 1 run of the base game.
Gotta agree with you here, I went in at lv90 with 40 vigor, by the time I finished 2nd remembrance boss, I was at lv 120 with 50 vigor. That (and heavy armour) was just enough to survive 2/3 hits from the big aoe attack she has.
Never learnt to do spoilers, hence my roundabout description.
Yea, vigor is good but in terms of effective health the difference between 50 and 60 health is comparable to a single scadu upgrade. And the scadu upgrades only become more effective as you get more.
"40 vig is fine" starts to become true again at Scadu level 15ish. You still leave yourself open to one-shots from grabs and such but the normal attacks are less oppresive.
And entertainingly, Damage reduction Talismans, Physick, Prawns all still give like a flat 5% increase to damage reduction at that point. Stack all those on top of high scadu level and you can just tank everything.
Honestly you can "outstat" this DLC more than you can Melenia.
I've been making 40 vig work at Scad level 10. It's actually making me adjust stuff like resistances with armor and use defensive spells, items, and talismans but I can usually survive 3 non-grab hits, and generally speaking, that's enough. Maybe I'll reconsider when it comes to the very last bosses though.
50 Vigor and Scadu 8 was enough to survive everything from the optional boss on top of a mountain (avoiding any spoilers) with the right talismans and eventually got him down as well.
Still at 40 myself but I run a pretty defensive build so it works out. I've beaten 4 bosses so far, Rellana was my last one. Regular NG. And yes I use summons.
Iām not really sure how the scaling works at all and therefore if Iām just really rusty/bad or if I need to fuck off and find more blessings.
Iām 135, (with 50 vig) and blessing level 4. I gave up on Dancing Lion and reached Rellana last night who proceeded to push my shit in. Part of it was shite party timing but when I got to itās big sweeping magic sword attack it basically 1 hit me.
People really hate how Scadu makes it so they can't overlevel before the dlc
It's like that was the point by from to make sure we acutally explore the dlc and not bumrush
You know, like what they did with Morgott acting as a
"Hey maybe you should go explore Limgrave a bit before going straight to the story bosses"
A lot and I mean a LOT of people don't explore, don't do side dungeons unless railroaded or it falls into their lap, and don't go off the beaten path at all.
A friend of mine can open the map, but he can't really read it.
His eyes just kinda gloss over. I think it's the art style. You ask him to point out the location of interesting terrain and he'll say "yup nothing here."
This was Weeping Peninsula. Like all of it. 3 sacred tears he woulda missed if I wasn't like "yeah uh let's check just in case."
I played a fresh file and honestly its not nearly as tedious as bingo ring that you have to do for basegame items to set up early. The map is very compact and if you know where to go (at a replay who cares about just using a wiki map) youll be level 10 in no time which should set you up for the good 1st half of the dlc and then you just grab the convenient ones along the way afterwards.
I've only beaten one legend, and a couple minor bosses. On rellana now and having an interesting time.
It feels like the 1st phase of all these bosses are pretty easy or straightforward, then the 2nd phase is "fuck you and yo momma"
Full respect to the unga bunga builds. I tried respecing to one at lvl 210 to deal with a boss, and I just couldnt get the hang of it.
Might need to start a new character from scratch after beating this DLC...
No hang to it, just "old skool" Soulsbourning.
Basically, you're either doing jump r2s, or avoiding a bosses attacks by rolling.
Only one rule: don't get hit.
I'm not so sure. Because I felt the same way about the base game and collecting flask upgrades, golden seeds and smithing stones, and yet here I am, seven playthtoughs later.Ā
Actually the first time is the least tedious because of the novelty of the experience, esp for the annoying BS areas in Elden Ring a lot is just tedious in succeeding playthroughs, it's why I have the fewest playthroughs in ER but 2nd most time second only to Bloodborne (because I just use my usual toons and explore or NG+)
Since I really dont wanna do the tedium of farming smithing stones (actually made me bite the bullet for cheatengine), going thru annoying areas and 'secrets' for all the collectibles (the rly BS jumping sections in Raya Lucaria come to mind, anywhere with a lot of rly shitty deaths from falling anyway)
I feel there's an interesting difference: there are more Sacred Tears and Golden Seeds in the game than you need to fully upgrade your flasks, and Smithing Stones are endlessly farmable/buyable (apart from Ancient Dragon Stones). On repeat playthroughs, finding Seeds and Tears has always felt "organic", I run into them while playing mostly normally.
My understanding is that there's no excess Scadutree Blessings, which kind of changes this for me.
There's only enough sacred tears to get flasks fully upgraded, although the returns on the last few upgrades are slim, so you dont actually "need" all of them, i suspect scadutree shards are the same.
I dont think it'll be that bad for repeat playthroughs. Once you know where they are, there's little difference to when you had to re-gather physik tears or Sacred Tears and what not. However, shoutout to randomizer players, y'all probably gonna have a fun time looking for those seeds lmao
I summoned a dude the other day (lvl 160) and he got OHKOād by Messmer because he had 900 HPā¦9 with two zeroes. At level 160, on a melee build with who knows how many Sacdutree upgrades. Like what? How?
My big complaint is that, unlike collectibles in the base game, scadutree fragments are not well telegraphed as to where you can expect to get them.
In the base game, the core collectibles all followed pretty simple rules:
* Golden seeds are found by golden Erdtree saplings.
* Cracked tears are found by minor Erdtrees.
* Sacred tears are found at Churches of Marika.
Once you know what you're looking for, even though you need to explore, when you're close to your goal you will naturally be drawn to it, and it also means you can rule out an area from having one of these collectibles.
Even in the DLC, some collectibles follow these patterns:
* Cracked tears are found by killing Furnace Golems
But with the most important collectibles of all, scadutree fragments (and to a lesser extend, revered spirit ash), there are not easy rules as to where to look or what activities can yield them.
* About a dozen of the fragments are found at Miquella's crosses (these are well telegraphed)
* Many revered spirit ash are found at altars (although many altars have other rewards)
* "Hippos" always drop a fragment when killed
* "Shiny pot" ghosts can give something good - but this could be a crafting material, or it could be a fragment or ash. These are quite easy to miss.
* Some but not all churches have fragments. Others have various other items.
* Many are just sitting somewhere in the open world waiting for you to stumble on them.
So when you're trying to find scadu fragments to level up, it's hard to know where to look or what to do, and it's hard to know if a given area has been searched well enough or not. It makes looking for fragments feel much more aimless than collectibles in the base game were.
Also, unlike the main game where there were extra golden seeds beyond what it takes to max your flasks, here all 50 are needed to hit level 20.
I'm maybe at 12-15 hrs and I'm here wondering wtf shiny pot ghosts are. I covered what seems like the whole area between the start and great bridge, including those ruins. Do they only show up at night or something? Or is it a variation of the shadow enemies that carry pots on their head?
Good analysis. Getting 20 blessing without a guide is basically next to impossible because of how well hidden some are. You really have to go out of your way to get them, and even then it's hard to know what you're looking for exactly.
I think it would be a lot better if the whole system worked like rune level, where you get like scadu runes from killing enemies and use those to level your scadu blessing. It would be a lot less tedious and make the exploration more natural, because it actually encourages fighting stuff instead of running past everything to get to the crosses/marika statues/...
Ugh thatās just such a better idea. Iām like sprinting around areas ignoring enemies because Iām just looking for glowing purple items and scadu spots. Virtually no reason to engage with 90% of the enemies when Iām plenty high enough rune level already just this dumb scadu mechanic holding me back at this stage
There *really* needed to be a worthwhile rune dump in the DLC. Half the loot being smithing stones you can just buy and runes being completely useless does feel kind of bad.
At least it feels nice to not give a fuck when I lose 1 million+ runes, though.
I don't know - being free of the requirement to dump runes on levels got me curious of stacking up on absurd amounts of various consumables etc. and generally engaging with the crafting system more.
I've got more crab than a Louisiana bayou and still have runes burning a hole in my pocket, lol. There aren't enough consumables in the world to account for just how many runes things drop in the DLC.
Well it would help if I could actually *buy* a lot of materials needed for crafting. It blows my mind that some of these merchants sell so many magical fantasy ass items in bulk but apparently the Lands Between is in a perpetual shortage of fucking string.
You can just use the runes to upgrade your weapons to play around with them. Esepcially the DLC weapons are fun, I find myself going into areas with always two different weapons
Yesterday I found a fragment on the ground in a dark little cave in the middle of nowhere just because I rolled into it while dodging. I was glad to find it but the location honestly annoyed me. I actually passed there once but missed it since itās so dark underground and the lantern doesnāt do much.
I have a friend who keeps telling me āyouāre just not exploring enoughā but Iāve spent far more time running around in the world and checking caves than I have doing anything else in the expansion and Iām only +8, and have fucked up some quest line progression as a result. Most caves and dungeons Iāve found didnāt even have any.
For something so important to progression, I wish they were a bit more abundant. Fuck it we ball.
I've been playing for ~8 hours so far and only found enough to get to scadulevel 3
It's at the point that I'm ignoring almost all fights just trying to find these goddamn things, without success
I didn't even *know* about the ghosts with pots until just now
I intrinsically felt myself not liking the blessing system as I was playing the DLC and this comment finally clicked for me on why. I'd be keeping an eye out for fragments and ashes but I didn't even really know what I was looking for.
It is funny to see people complaining about finding these fragments.. meanwhile i'm just having fun exploring wherever and am already at lvl 13 blessings before even finishing Shadow Keep..
Structurally it feels like it's the second or third dungeon you're likely to come across, roughly mid game I think. I did it at level 6-8 and it felt alright.
Same, the level was easy at 6-7 but I could feel it in the bosses. I waited and came back at about 12-13 and was able to knock out 2 of the 3 boss fairly easily at that point.
It is intended to be mid to late game but it's so easy to get to otherwise. I already finished it and still have 5 whole areas to explore and multiple questlines to do.
Fr, I don't get why people are complaining about it so much. It's not different to stuff like flasks or smithing stones, it's definitely just people can't be bothered to have to go after another collectable. Either that or for whatever reason they don't want to explore in this game
Yeah..main reason i'm exploring was to find the out of the way new weapons and skills that i can include into my build.. ( loving the new fist weapons and some of the ashes of war/spells i've gotten ) The fragments were kinda incidental when i found them so didnt really think they were tedious or anything. Seeing people complaining about them does make me question if everyone is just rushing the dlc or something.
Yeah, I get that people want to finish the DLC, but I feel like a lot of players are forgetting the fact that the whole reason we are playing the DLC is cause we enjoyed the base game and wanted to play more of this game, not just cause we want to say that we beat the Elden Ring DLC
Totally. I still have barely moved past the beginning of the second area. Not even sure where I'm at relative to the story and all. I still have stuff in the first zone to do (killed the Ghostflame dragon tonight) and I want to take this as slow and chill as possible, given this is the last ER content we are getting and the last From game for a couple years at least.
The base game put in an enormous amount of work to make this simpler for players.
Golden Seeds are often on the critical path, next to major roads. Sacred Tears are generally found in churches, which you can clearly see on the map. Smithing stones come from caves and mines, which you can also clearly see on the map.
An NPC giving me a postage stamp sized picture pointing me to some of the crosses is a lot less guidance. And the DLC is a lot less consistent about where these items are placed.
the map is unironically useless in the DLC. In the base game I could tell nearly ever location of interest, and usually how to get there, just from the map. You cannot do that in the DLC.
I had to use a guide to get to 3 separate regions in the DLC because the map was incredibly useless in conveying how to actually get to the lower areas.
Imagine if you could somehow overlay the map you found with the other map you found.
I guess being able to see a treasure map with markings is too much like a ubisoft game
And me: Oh, Fromsoft give me the clearest clue I ever seen. *Go explore crosses there there and there*. That means I can progress from finding fragment and fight bosses around those cross, right?
Btw how does that map with the cross pointed out work? Everytime I have that conversation I go to the map but can't see anything. š¤·āāļø what am I looking for exactly.Ā
They donāt actually put them on your map, you have to look at the map item given to you in your inventory. Which is pretty annoying since in the main game your map normally gets marked when something like this happens.
Also, there were more Golden Seeds than you'd need to max out your Flash. I believe there are 12 too many.
Meanwhile Scadutree? Exactly 50. I literally wasted hours before completing the game just scouring for the remaining ones, ignoring everything but pot guys and Hippos. Awful system.
You pretty much only find them in 4 places. Crosses, Marika statues, hippos, and potheads. The annoying ones are the ones hidden on random corpses since those are everywhere and always have different stuff.
The random ones on the ground are so funny. Like what do you mean there's a room full of enemies casting a unique spell, but their best loot is a Scadutree Fragment they've just got sitting around?
Some of these potheads are pretty well hidden, too.
I feel like the problem wasnāt the fragments themselves but how many there were. I used a guide to find them all and turns out I was missing out on like 10 potential levels because I didnāt explore extremely specific areas. The system is fine but the placement of the fragments is pure fuckery
Of course, we will ignore the blatant clues that make it decently easy to level your flasks up.
Churches and little gold trees all have materials to level your flasks up.
Scad fragments, while in some obvious places, are very much so scattered what seems to be nearly randomly.
I don't like the system. It really brings the DLC down for me I think.
I'm with you. I didn't mind when the fragments were telegraphed at the crosses, it felt like that was reminiscent of the Flash upgrades. Then I got my first one from a random spot/mob and I knew it wasn't going to be as "simple" as in the normal game...
I really like the system, it gives progression in a game that I was worried wasn't going to be able to have progression for everyone (either new game or NG8, RL400). I just wish that the progression system didn't have random hidden mobs/locations that were required for it. They're too strong to feel fine with skipping like gear or talismans.
Finding 52 fragments is much more tideous, especially since there's several of them locked behind very difficult bosses. I've tried scouring them out using the wiki but it seems that there's still some unfound ones because I'm lvl 17 at the final boss and I'm only missing 1 fragment which I never found out how to get.
This really is like starting Elden Ring for the first time. Everything two hits me, bosses are fun(if frustrating) to fight against, and I get to explore new places!
Not your fault imo. The final boss is overtuned as fuck, huge damage sponge and huge damage dealer with many death combos, plus its hard to fucking read what heās doing from the āunique way he movesā
1k damage should not tickle this dude for 2 rice grain widths of his healthbar (im not exaggerating)
Don't think anyone liked stones, especially in elden ring where you need so many for base weapons and last ones are heavily limited which makes you unwilling to respect and try new things unless you start new game
It's a really poor system for replayability. Wonder if they'll throw in some extras with a patch or something. Or give us a Beast Eye-like item for them.
I get what they were going for, but I think the scadutree mechanic may have been a misstep that didn't land quite they way they were hoping it would. It's definitely something that's going to remain divisive about SOTE.
I think it's a great system that just needs the turn-in items tweaked a bit. I love how it continues the feeling of progression/getting stronger that I look for in Souls games. I just wish it were locked behind important bosses/locations and was a bit more obvious instead of random mobs.
I liked the first location map you're given (even though I wish I could have opened it full screen to see it more clearly), since it gave me a good idea of where to go. If they took that, kept iterating on it in new locations and the rest of the fragments were rewards from bosses/dungeons, then it would be a good balance of needing to explore while also rewarding for playing.
I just hate that I could bypass fragments and then have to go hunting (or use a map) to get it maxed out at the end once it becomes a roadblock.
I'm at blessing 13 I believe, haven't gone out of my way to get them. Haven't looked up a map for where they are. If I come across a shiny pot guy, I make sure to hit him with a comet but that's all the effort I've put in to getting these.
I'm far more interested in finding new sorceries (I'm super blind on what spells have been added so every new one is a surprise) or figuring out how many ways there are through Shadow Keep.
Iunno. Scadoosh tree feels arbitrary and more restricting than anything. Also it devalues my actual build from the main game in a way, cause RN my stats and equipment feel like they matter less than blessing level. It's not a pleasant feeling.
I'm in NG+3 getting 2-3 shot by basic soldier mobs, can't level without clearing the whole map cause of rune requirement, and have to treat half health as basically one hit away from death against bosses. All this despite 70 vigor.
So yeah...I'll take as many of these leveling fragments as I can get.
My issue with these is that they separate the difficulty from how well I built my character. Same issue I had with Defiled Chalice. My vig investment and gear suddenly don't matter because I don't have enough scooby snacks. Very artificial on top of some of the most unbalanced boss movesets I've seen.
Scadutree fragments would be perfectly fine if they made even one of these two changes:
1. Add extra fragments so that you don't have to gather every single one to max your blessing (which almost certainly means looking up a guide). 10 extra would be plenty just to give some leeway.
2. Place the fragments only on bosses and very well marked locations so you can't really miss them unless you're skipping content.
This isn't a specific issue with the new system but I wish you got a lil map marker when u collected one
Would make figuring out which ones I missed much easier
Ahh. Finally a wholesome use for this meme/comic.
I personally like the concept, as I definitely want to be able to enjoy a challenge with the concent and not just steamroll it all. I couldn't imagine paying for the dlc and just beating it in a couple hours. Maybe some people enjoy that, but I don't.
I'm missing 3 scadutree fragments.... My blessing lvl is 19..... Someone help me..... Edit: I unintentionally started a reddit orgy.....not that I'm complaining but as long as everyone's wearing socks.
[https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/elden-ring-shadow-of-the-erdtree-scadutree-fragment-locations](https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/elden-ring-shadow-of-the-erdtree-scadutree-fragment-locations) I used this to find my last few fragments!
I could kiss you š
I will kiss you š
can I join ?
Dude, there's a queue. Get in line and don't make it weird.
Too late it's already weird
So weird it's normal again š
Praise the sun
Only if āPraiseā means kiss, and āThe sunā your lips š®āšØ
Jolly Cooperation!
It's not werid if you remember your socks.
This is the equivalent to touching a summon sign and seeing āunable to summon cooperaterā
In today's news an impromptu public orgy broke out over at r/eldenring...
What if :Elden Ring was Freaky Ring and we freaked all over the lands between
Considering 80% of the messages I see are about edging and giant buttholes, I feel like we're already in Freaky Ring
I already kissed you š
I am kissing you right now 
My god how many of these fucking hippos are there?!
I'm not am expert, but based on my experience with fisher price games, 4
Can we get a hippo month incantation like the dragon heads? I want to role play as a hungry, hungry hippo in pvp now.
Only of everyone wears the head
Not enough to give me a feeling of justice after all the hassle the golden hippo caused me...
Dude his hitbox is half the god damn arena. Itās basically impossible to get away from the damn thing. Hated that fight.
It took me several attempts to even see the second phase where hippo actually becomes golden and blocks even more of your view
I'd recommend a YouTube vid, the verticality of the map makes using an article to find them so much harder. https://youtu.be/WE03ubcPoa4?si=vmXIWkC_znyJnz-c
is it the same as golden seeds where there are actually more seeds than you need or are these limited?
Sadly there are exactly 50 to get you to blessing level 20, no extra :(
And there is a bug where if you kill one of the pot guys and die before you pick up the item, it doesn't respawn, locking you at upgrade 19, happened to me and seemingly a lot of other people. Wont get level 20 until ng+, but I'm almost at final boss and 19 has felt like plenty.
I felt the same way but that changed when I arrived at the final boss about an hour ago.
Tbf, might be a tough pill, but that one extra level probably won't really make *the*" difference in the end\^^
This is kind of stupid, considering some of them are \*quite\* tough to get to. Should've been more than you need, that's usually the case with these things. Not sure why From decided to make it this way
Wait theyāre extras? Good to know Iāll have to look up the cap now.
For me, I have 9 extra golden seeds since I maxed my flask
Good god there's five of them locked behind one of the most annoying optional bosses.
god damn, apparently after beating gaius, i was so enamored by the bigass bowl and the tree behind it that i missed 5 glowing bits right in front of it
Here I am at 9 feeling like a high roller, damn!
You just made me feel so much better and encouraged me to get back in there and explore the region more. >!Radahn!< Has been absolutely gaping my asshole but I went in with ScaduX12 and 2 regions unexplored. I did not realise it could get that high and assumed it capped at +15 or something
If it makes you feel better he was 3 shotting me at ~13 scuda. So I took 2 hours to get 20 and it helped! Now I get 3 shot
Nah I'm looking at my damage and that's my issue haha I burned through all my flasks before triggering phase 2
What finally did it for me after like 6 hours was bleed
+20 pretty much doubles your attack and damage negation, so it's definitely worth getting them, eslecially for him.
Yeah it caps at 20. I'm missing one now and I have no idea where it is, so I'm gonna go find the rest of the revered spirit ashes
Find a guide and go to all the places including the ones you are 100% sure you have been to. Also in fextralife, they seem to only have found 50? I'd wait until someone found all 52.
There's 52?
I am coping the last 2 aren't found. Or else it's a DS1 estus moment.
> Or else it's a DS1 estus moment. what does this mean
I have Level 18 Scadutree blessing, now instead of being 2 shot im being 4 shot.
+9 here and that sounds glorious
Level 20 scadutree blessing, still being 2-3 shot by the final boss with as much defense i can put on my body or just outright dying if caught in one of his comboās
I use Golden Vow, Blessing of the Erdtree and Boiled Prawn in addition to the big physical damage negation talisman you get from Haligtree, the talisman that boosts defense at max HP, and the two sword girls armor from the DLC.
I also use those two incants, running 60 vigor with dragoncrest gs, pearldrake +3, good armor, and the opaline hardtear, my resistances are literally above 70 and im still getting torn apart if i get caught in a single combo of his.
i was at my sisters place watching her boyfriend fight >!rellana!< at rl 173, with 32 vig and scadu lvl 1. she told me hes been fighting her all day and yesterday lol. i dont like backseating ppl, but when he offered me the controller i said "no thanks, i dont feel comfortable with low health" lol
He must not be leveling up intelligence either
Sounds like he has 99 faith tho
And foolish ambitions he didn't put to rest
Have it writ upon his meagre grave
Felled by ignorance, the trickster of man.
victory will not be sanctioned in someone so bereft of blessings.....
Wouldst thou truly lordship sanction, in one so bereft of vigor?
Overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer.
Which one, cause bro musta filled up the graves in the starting area all by himself
Faith user:"My faith is my shield." Vig user:"My face is my shield".
Mike Tyson trying to decide which one he is: "My fathe is my shield".
[Arthur....](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7roD0qBuRE)
Just one more big score!
We need munny, Orthur. We'll go to Ta-hi-ti, Orthur.
I've been flying the "40 vig is fine" flag through the base game, I took a big bite of the old humble pie and respec to 60 after around the 3rd boss I think. It was getting worse than my lvl 1 run of the base game.
Iām feeling pretty good at 50 vigor for the dlc. Lived at 40 for the base game, but definitely needed a boost for this chaos.
Gotta agree with you here, I went in at lv90 with 40 vigor, by the time I finished 2nd remembrance boss, I was at lv 120 with 50 vigor. That (and heavy armour) was just enough to survive 2/3 hits from the big aoe attack she has. Never learnt to do spoilers, hence my roundabout description.
>! Here ! < With no space.
Amusingly it spoiler hid that. But the notification tab shows it, thank you.
For anyone else who's curious: \>\!Spoiler goes here\!\< turns into: >!Spoiler goes here!<
Yea, vigor is good but in terms of effective health the difference between 50 and 60 health is comparable to a single scadu upgrade. And the scadu upgrades only become more effective as you get more.
50 is fine..... Then some random grunt shouts, turns red and kills me in 2 hits wearing a full set of armor of solitude yeah maybe 50 isn't fine
"40 vig is fine" starts to become true again at Scadu level 15ish. You still leave yourself open to one-shots from grabs and such but the normal attacks are less oppresive.
True. I beat the final boss with Scadutree level 16 and 60 vigor, and he took 3-5 hits to kill me. More than enough of a buffer.
And entertainingly, Damage reduction Talismans, Physick, Prawns all still give like a flat 5% increase to damage reduction at that point. Stack all those on top of high scadu level and you can just tank everything. Honestly you can "outstat" this DLC more than you can Melenia.
I've been making 40 vig work at Scad level 10. It's actually making me adjust stuff like resistances with armor and use defensive spells, items, and talismans but I can usually survive 3 non-grab hits, and generally speaking, that's enough. Maybe I'll reconsider when it comes to the very last bosses though.
50 Vigor and Scadu 8 was enough to survive everything from the optional boss on top of a mountain (avoiding any spoilers) with the right talismans and eventually got him down as well.
Still at 40 myself but I run a pretty defensive build so it works out. I've beaten 4 bosses so far, Rellana was my last one. Regular NG. And yes I use summons.
Iām not really sure how the scaling works at all and therefore if Iām just really rusty/bad or if I need to fuck off and find more blessings. Iām 135, (with 50 vig) and blessing level 4. I gave up on Dancing Lion and reached Rellana last night who proceeded to push my shit in. Part of it was shite party timing but when I got to itās big sweeping magic sword attack it basically 1 hit me.
If it gets too much, grab a great shield. It completely negates her phase 1 damage and the right shield will make the second do a lot of less.
People really hate how Scadu makes it so they can't overlevel before the dlc It's like that was the point by from to make sure we acutally explore the dlc and not bumrush You know, like what they did with Morgott acting as a "Hey maybe you should go explore Limgrave a bit before going straight to the story bosses"
that is honestly what I have been doing (my vigor is 39). But I just accept the fact that I am torturing myself, not that the game is too hard lol.
You should have still played so he can see. Sometimes you don't have perspective when you're playingĀ
ā¦ how.. I had mine at 3 or 4 by her. How are people doing this to themselves?
A lot and I mean a LOT of people don't explore, don't do side dungeons unless railroaded or it falls into their lap, and don't go off the beaten path at all. A friend of mine can open the map, but he can't really read it. His eyes just kinda gloss over. I think it's the art style. You ask him to point out the location of interesting terrain and he'll say "yup nothing here." This was Weeping Peninsula. Like all of it. 3 sacred tears he woulda missed if I wasn't like "yeah uh let's check just in case."
I can't believe people are at the final boss under 20 hours. Like, yeah, that's not a speedrun but it's not scenic either.
That's fine. Eventually he will be good enough to no-hit her.
Itās fine for a first playthrough but playing it a second time is gonna be so tedious finding those scoobydoo trees
I played a fresh file and honestly its not nearly as tedious as bingo ring that you have to do for basegame items to set up early. The map is very compact and if you know where to go (at a replay who cares about just using a wiki map) youll be level 10 in no time which should set you up for the good 1st half of the dlc and then you just grab the convenient ones along the way afterwards.
"good 1st half of the dlc" Dude im +10 and killed 2 bosses. Jesus christ i did barely nothing and yet so much
I'm 4 and killed 3. Get that unga bunga going. Takes at least 3 steps out of the fight.
Double greatsword build is king. Though it's concerning how much poise the new bosses have. Like 7-8 jump double strikes to break stance
But on the other hand, some bosses' poise is kind of ludicrously low. I smashed Rellana into the ground with the Anvil Hammer lol.
I've only beaten one legend, and a couple minor bosses. On rellana now and having an interesting time. It feels like the 1st phase of all these bosses are pretty easy or straightforward, then the 2nd phase is "fuck you and yo momma"
I love my giant hammer, so much poise damage xD
Full respect to the unga bunga builds. I tried respecing to one at lvl 210 to deal with a boss, and I just couldnt get the hang of it. Might need to start a new character from scratch after beating this DLC...
No hang to it, just "old skool" Soulsbourning. Basically, you're either doing jump r2s, or avoiding a bosses attacks by rolling. Only one rule: don't get hit.
bingo ring?
having to manically run around for all the basic tools in the early game feels like ur doing a collectathon bingo
Yeah you can get like 70% of the fragments on the main path you have to take anyways, which should be enough to get through it.
I'm not so sure. Because I felt the same way about the base game and collecting flask upgrades, golden seeds and smithing stones, and yet here I am, seven playthtoughs later.Ā
Once you've done it a time or 2 you get pretty fast at it. It only feels abit tedious when you don't know where stuff is.
Actually the first time is the least tedious because of the novelty of the experience, esp for the annoying BS areas in Elden Ring a lot is just tedious in succeeding playthroughs, it's why I have the fewest playthroughs in ER but 2nd most time second only to Bloodborne (because I just use my usual toons and explore or NG+) Since I really dont wanna do the tedium of farming smithing stones (actually made me bite the bullet for cheatengine), going thru annoying areas and 'secrets' for all the collectibles (the rly BS jumping sections in Raya Lucaria come to mind, anywhere with a lot of rly shitty deaths from falling anyway)
It still feel tedious even when you remember where everything is
I feel there's an interesting difference: there are more Sacred Tears and Golden Seeds in the game than you need to fully upgrade your flasks, and Smithing Stones are endlessly farmable/buyable (apart from Ancient Dragon Stones). On repeat playthroughs, finding Seeds and Tears has always felt "organic", I run into them while playing mostly normally. My understanding is that there's no excess Scadutree Blessings, which kind of changes this for me.
There's only enough sacred tears to get flasks fully upgraded, although the returns on the last few upgrades are slim, so you dont actually "need" all of them, i suspect scadutree shards are the same.
Most of those feel more on the way and you do more decent damage if they're a bit underlevelled compared to the dlc too.
Wait, your scadutree level resets once you start a ng+ playthrough?
No it doesnāt. I was talking about a fresh file
Ah ok, was scared for a second lol
Been curious about this too
I dont think it'll be that bad for repeat playthroughs. Once you know where they are, there's little difference to when you had to re-gather physik tears or Sacred Tears and what not. However, shoutout to randomizer players, y'all probably gonna have a fun time looking for those seeds lmao
If you randomise the scadutree fragments you're insane lol, I would just set those to be exempt
Would you not just look them up at later playthroughs?
They carry to ng+ and on a fresh character you already have to collect a ton of stuffā¦ itās an rpg??? This is pretty normal
I summoned a dude the other day (lvl 160) and he got OHKOād by Messmer because he had 900 HPā¦9 with two zeroes. At level 160, on a melee build with who knows how many Sacdutree upgrades. Like what? How?
I mean there is a way... [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6MpHbLs8eg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6MpHbLs8eg) But then you have to be Ongbal...
My big complaint is that, unlike collectibles in the base game, scadutree fragments are not well telegraphed as to where you can expect to get them. In the base game, the core collectibles all followed pretty simple rules: * Golden seeds are found by golden Erdtree saplings. * Cracked tears are found by minor Erdtrees. * Sacred tears are found at Churches of Marika. Once you know what you're looking for, even though you need to explore, when you're close to your goal you will naturally be drawn to it, and it also means you can rule out an area from having one of these collectibles. Even in the DLC, some collectibles follow these patterns: * Cracked tears are found by killing Furnace Golems But with the most important collectibles of all, scadutree fragments (and to a lesser extend, revered spirit ash), there are not easy rules as to where to look or what activities can yield them. * About a dozen of the fragments are found at Miquella's crosses (these are well telegraphed) * Many revered spirit ash are found at altars (although many altars have other rewards) * "Hippos" always drop a fragment when killed * "Shiny pot" ghosts can give something good - but this could be a crafting material, or it could be a fragment or ash. These are quite easy to miss. * Some but not all churches have fragments. Others have various other items. * Many are just sitting somewhere in the open world waiting for you to stumble on them. So when you're trying to find scadu fragments to level up, it's hard to know where to look or what to do, and it's hard to know if a given area has been searched well enough or not. It makes looking for fragments feel much more aimless than collectibles in the base game were. Also, unlike the main game where there were extra golden seeds beyond what it takes to max your flasks, here all 50 are needed to hit level 20.
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I'm maybe at 12-15 hrs and I'm here wondering wtf shiny pot ghosts are. I covered what seems like the whole area between the start and great bridge, including those ruins. Do they only show up at night or something? Or is it a variation of the shadow enemies that carry pots on their head?
they are the enemies that carry pots on top of their heads. itās āshinyā because the pot has shiny particles around it
It's the shadow enemies with pots on their heads, sometimes they are a bit shinier than normal
>Or is it a variation of the shadow enemies that carry pots on their head? exactly that
Good analysis. Getting 20 blessing without a guide is basically next to impossible because of how well hidden some are. You really have to go out of your way to get them, and even then it's hard to know what you're looking for exactly. I think it would be a lot better if the whole system worked like rune level, where you get like scadu runes from killing enemies and use those to level your scadu blessing. It would be a lot less tedious and make the exploration more natural, because it actually encourages fighting stuff instead of running past everything to get to the crosses/marika statues/...
Damn. I didn't even know there were 20 of them scooby doo blessings levels. I have like 12 and I thought I must have gotten most of them.
there aren't 20 of them, that's the levels. there are 50 of the fragments in the world.
My bad. I meant to say levels. I am lvl 12
Ugh thatās just such a better idea. Iām like sprinting around areas ignoring enemies because Iām just looking for glowing purple items and scadu spots. Virtually no reason to engage with 90% of the enemies when Iām plenty high enough rune level already just this dumb scadu mechanic holding me back at this stage
There *really* needed to be a worthwhile rune dump in the DLC. Half the loot being smithing stones you can just buy and runes being completely useless does feel kind of bad. At least it feels nice to not give a fuck when I lose 1 million+ runes, though.
I don't know - being free of the requirement to dump runes on levels got me curious of stacking up on absurd amounts of various consumables etc. and generally engaging with the crafting system more.
I've got more crab than a Louisiana bayou and still have runes burning a hole in my pocket, lol. There aren't enough consumables in the world to account for just how many runes things drop in the DLC.
Well it would help if I could actually *buy* a lot of materials needed for crafting. It blows my mind that some of these merchants sell so many magical fantasy ass items in bulk but apparently the Lands Between is in a perpetual shortage of fucking string.
You can just use the runes to upgrade your weapons to play around with them. Esepcially the DLC weapons are fun, I find myself going into areas with always two different weapons
Pot dudes with fragments respawn really annoys me.
Yesterday I found a fragment on the ground in a dark little cave in the middle of nowhere just because I rolled into it while dodging. I was glad to find it but the location honestly annoyed me. I actually passed there once but missed it since itās so dark underground and the lantern doesnāt do much.
I have a friend who keeps telling me āyouāre just not exploring enoughā but Iāve spent far more time running around in the world and checking caves than I have doing anything else in the expansion and Iām only +8, and have fucked up some quest line progression as a result. Most caves and dungeons Iāve found didnāt even have any. For something so important to progression, I wish they were a bit more abundant. Fuck it we ball.
I've been playing for ~8 hours so far and only found enough to get to scadulevel 3 It's at the point that I'm ignoring almost all fights just trying to find these goddamn things, without success I didn't even *know* about the ghosts with pots until just now
I intrinsically felt myself not liking the blessing system as I was playing the DLC and this comment finally clicked for me on why. I'd be keeping an eye out for fragments and ashes but I didn't even really know what I was looking for.
Maxing? No. Getting a lot? Yes. There's just too many hidden away.
It is funny to see people complaining about finding these fragments.. meanwhile i'm just having fun exploring wherever and am already at lvl 13 blessings before even finishing Shadow Keep..
"Before even finishing Shadow Keep" Is SK not late game area? I'm 3 days in and just reached it lol...
Structurally it feels like it's the second or third dungeon you're likely to come across, roughly mid game I think. I did it at level 6-8 and it felt alright.
Same, the level was easy at 6-7 but I could feel it in the bosses. I waited and came back at about 12-13 and was able to knock out 2 of the 3 boss fairly easily at that point.
It is intended to be mid to late game but it's so easy to get to otherwise. I already finished it and still have 5 whole areas to explore and multiple questlines to do.
Man I love me some good exploring but for some reason I'm hardly enjoying that at all this time around.
Fr, I don't get why people are complaining about it so much. It's not different to stuff like flasks or smithing stones, it's definitely just people can't be bothered to have to go after another collectable. Either that or for whatever reason they don't want to explore in this game
I do know someone who just wants to get to the big fights. The rest is a headache to him.
Yeah..main reason i'm exploring was to find the out of the way new weapons and skills that i can include into my build.. ( loving the new fist weapons and some of the ashes of war/spells i've gotten ) The fragments were kinda incidental when i found them so didnt really think they were tedious or anything. Seeing people complaining about them does make me question if everyone is just rushing the dlc or something.
Yeah, I get that people want to finish the DLC, but I feel like a lot of players are forgetting the fact that the whole reason we are playing the DLC is cause we enjoyed the base game and wanted to play more of this game, not just cause we want to say that we beat the Elden Ring DLC
Totally. I still have barely moved past the beginning of the second area. Not even sure where I'm at relative to the story and all. I still have stuff in the first zone to do (killed the Ghostflame dragon tonight) and I want to take this as slow and chill as possible, given this is the last ER content we are getting and the last From game for a couple years at least.
I'm having fun with it on this playthrough but I definitely don't think it's a good system and will likely be pretty tedious if I want to replay.
The base game put in an enormous amount of work to make this simpler for players. Golden Seeds are often on the critical path, next to major roads. Sacred Tears are generally found in churches, which you can clearly see on the map. Smithing stones come from caves and mines, which you can also clearly see on the map. An NPC giving me a postage stamp sized picture pointing me to some of the crosses is a lot less guidance. And the DLC is a lot less consistent about where these items are placed.
Seriously why can't we actually LOOK AT THE FUCKING MAP????
the map is unironically useless in the DLC. In the base game I could tell nearly ever location of interest, and usually how to get there, just from the map. You cannot do that in the DLC.
I had to use a guide to get to 3 separate regions in the DLC because the map was incredibly useless in conveying how to actually get to the lower areas.
Because the dlc is designed like a dark souls game. When the level design is tight enough and loops back around, you dont need a map.
Imagine if you could somehow overlay the map you found with the other map you found. I guess being able to see a treasure map with markings is too much like a ubisoft game
And me: Oh, Fromsoft give me the clearest clue I ever seen. *Go explore crosses there there and there*. That means I can progress from finding fragment and fight bosses around those cross, right?
>Go explore crosses there there and there #*Squints at crosses map...*
Honestly that map item should have put the crosses on the actual game map.
The finger ruins maps are even worse
Btw how does that map with the cross pointed out work? Everytime I have that conversation I go to the map but can't see anything. š¤·āāļø what am I looking for exactly.Ā
They donāt actually put them on your map, you have to look at the map item given to you in your inventory. Which is pretty annoying since in the main game your map normally gets marked when something like this happens.
Oh ok thanks bro
Also, there were more Golden Seeds than you'd need to max out your Flash. I believe there are 12 too many. Meanwhile Scadutree? Exactly 50. I literally wasted hours before completing the game just scouring for the remaining ones, ignoring everything but pot guys and Hippos. Awful system.
You pretty much only find them in 4 places. Crosses, Marika statues, hippos, and potheads. The annoying ones are the ones hidden on random corpses since those are everywhere and always have different stuff.
The random ones on the ground are so funny. Like what do you mean there's a room full of enemies casting a unique spell, but their best loot is a Scadutree Fragment they've just got sitting around? Some of these potheads are pretty well hidden, too.
I thought I was going crazy! Why the hell canāt we expand the maps?? Had to get up, take a photo with my phone lol
I feel like the problem wasnāt the fragments themselves but how many there were. I used a guide to find them all and turns out I was missing out on like 10 potential levels because I didnāt explore extremely specific areas. The system is fine but the placement of the fragments is pure fuckery
Agreed. Golden Seeds are in abundance. You need every single Scadutree Fragment
Golden seeds are also super easy to find. You can get a ton of flasks before Margitt without breaking a sweat.
Of course, we will ignore the blatant clues that make it decently easy to level your flasks up. Churches and little gold trees all have materials to level your flasks up. Scad fragments, while in some obvious places, are very much so scattered what seems to be nearly randomly. I don't like the system. It really brings the DLC down for me I think.
I'm with you. I didn't mind when the fragments were telegraphed at the crosses, it felt like that was reminiscent of the Flash upgrades. Then I got my first one from a random spot/mob and I knew it wasn't going to be as "simple" as in the normal game... I really like the system, it gives progression in a game that I was worried wasn't going to be able to have progression for everyone (either new game or NG8, RL400). I just wish that the progression system didn't have random hidden mobs/locations that were required for it. They're too strong to feel fine with skipping like gear or talismans.
Finding 52 fragments is much more tideous, especially since there's several of them locked behind very difficult bosses. I've tried scouring them out using the wiki but it seems that there's still some unfound ones because I'm lvl 17 at the final boss and I'm only missing 1 fragment which I never found out how to get.
The max scadu level is 20, 3x a level.
This really is like starting Elden Ring for the first time. Everything two hits me, bosses are fun(if frustrating) to fight against, and I get to explore new places!
Meanwhile me: I am Level 20, got all Fragments and still cant beat the Endboss ... yep i suck.
Not your fault imo. The final boss is overtuned as fuck, huge damage sponge and huge damage dealer with many death combos, plus its hard to fucking read what heās doing from the āunique way he movesā 1k damage should not tickle this dude for 2 rice grain widths of his healthbar (im not exaggerating)
Don't think anyone liked stones, especially in elden ring where you need so many for base weapons and last ones are heavily limited which makes you unwilling to respect and try new things unless you start new game
man, i beat Bayle with 6 blesings and +9 Flasks, i felt so dumb but so confident of myself
It's a really poor system for replayability. Wonder if they'll throw in some extras with a patch or something. Or give us a Beast Eye-like item for them.
They won't. People here seem to love it and everyone that criticizes the system on the internet will be called a scrub or anything similar.
I get what they were going for, but I think the scadutree mechanic may have been a misstep that didn't land quite they way they were hoping it would. It's definitely something that's going to remain divisive about SOTE.
I feel like it shouldāve been done like prayer beads in Sekiro. Have them all be dropped by mini bosses near and or in legacy dungeons.
I think it's a great system that just needs the turn-in items tweaked a bit. I love how it continues the feeling of progression/getting stronger that I look for in Souls games. I just wish it were locked behind important bosses/locations and was a bit more obvious instead of random mobs. I liked the first location map you're given (even though I wish I could have opened it full screen to see it more clearly), since it gave me a good idea of where to go. If they took that, kept iterating on it in new locations and the rest of the fragments were rewards from bosses/dungeons, then it would be a good balance of needing to explore while also rewarding for playing. I just hate that I could bypass fragments and then have to go hunting (or use a map) to get it maxed out at the end once it becomes a roadblock.
I got to level 14 without even being super thorough, itās really overblown how tedious finding them is imo
I'm at blessing 13 I believe, haven't gone out of my way to get them. Haven't looked up a map for where they are. If I come across a shiny pot guy, I make sure to hit him with a comet but that's all the effort I've put in to getting these. I'm far more interested in finding new sorceries (I'm super blind on what spells have been added so every new one is a surprise) or figuring out how many ways there are through Shadow Keep.
Iunno. Scadoosh tree feels arbitrary and more restricting than anything. Also it devalues my actual build from the main game in a way, cause RN my stats and equipment feel like they matter less than blessing level. It's not a pleasant feeling.
I'm in NG+3 getting 2-3 shot by basic soldier mobs, can't level without clearing the whole map cause of rune requirement, and have to treat half health as basically one hit away from death against bosses. All this despite 70 vigor. So yeah...I'll take as many of these leveling fragments as I can get.
My issue with these is that they separate the difficulty from how well I built my character. Same issue I had with Defiled Chalice. My vig investment and gear suddenly don't matter because I don't have enough scooby snacks. Very artificial on top of some of the most unbalanced boss movesets I've seen.
Defiled chalice got a lot of shit, but compared to FRC depth 5 chalices for lvl 20 gems, it was a cakewalk.
Scadutree fragments would be perfectly fine if they made even one of these two changes: 1. Add extra fragments so that you don't have to gather every single one to max your blessing (which almost certainly means looking up a guide). 10 extra would be plenty just to give some leeway. 2. Place the fragments only on bosses and very well marked locations so you can't really miss them unless you're skipping content.
This isn't a specific issue with the new system but I wish you got a lil map marker when u collected one Would make figuring out which ones I missed much easier
Me struggling with 70 vigor, hp talisman, erd tree favour talisman, scaddutree blessing also leveled up... Maybe im having a skill issue š
There's no point in only stacking hp. The hp talismans in particular are a noob trap. Talismans that give you resistances are better.
Ahh. Finally a wholesome use for this meme/comic. I personally like the concept, as I definitely want to be able to enjoy a challenge with the concent and not just steamroll it all. I couldn't imagine paying for the dlc and just beating it in a couple hours. Maybe some people enjoy that, but I don't.
Except, having 3 flasks doesn't make you one-shot'd by bosses and you can still heal from other source.