Elden Ring is considered by many to be FromSoftwre’s crowning achievement, boasting the company’s largest map, as well as countless bosses, weapons, and builds to test out. And on July 25, a Reddit user solicited advice from the Elden Ring subreddit, asking users about their niche ‘cheese strats.’
FromSoftware’s award-winning action RPG released on Feb. 25, 2022, with players quickly cracking open the game to find extremely overpowered weapons and builds. Even over one year later, u/i_hatehumans’ thread proved that there are still plenty of unique builds and specific strategies that have largely remained uncovered.
Flails to fell the Fire Giant
The Fire Giant is one of the more frustrating bosses in Elden Ring. His arena is a sprawling, snowy biome where you will constantly need to chase down the Fire Giant all while avoiding his lumbering attacks and firey projectiles. Thread OP u/i_hatehumans however found an easy way to dispatch the giant.
Flails, ranging from regular to powerful versions such as the Nightrider, come inherent with bleed damage. When paired with cold damage, the Redditor described that you can simply ride around the Fire Giant on Torrent while spamming your heavy attack to swiftly chunk down the boss’s health. Considering bleed damage works against most bosses in Elden Ring, you can likely use this strat on more bosses than just the Fire Giant.
Ranged Rot Bolts
Rot is undoubtedly one of the most deadly status effects in Elden Ring. Scarlet Rot is a severe damage over time effect that will gradually tick down any enemy’s health. U/MayoneggSalad stated that by using rot-imbued bolts with a pulley crossbow, you can create a extremely powerful ranged tool.
Though the damage of the crossbow is minimal, the real value of this strategy is keeping Scarlet Rot applied on your target. With enough Scarlet Rot bolts, you can dance around your enemy, whether it be a fellow player or boss, and gradually wear down their health bar.
Troll’s War Ash of War
Ash of Wars can completely alter your build by providing unique abilities to your favorite weapons. U/houseinaswamp describes how they made use of an underrated Ash of War, Troll’s Roar. Out of all Ashes, Troll’s Roar is one that you acquire fairly early on by slaying any troll and getting their weapon, or by locating it near the Church of Repose in the Mountaintop of the Giants.
Related: Best Ashes of War in Elden Ring
The Redditor describes that this Ash, plus the Roar talisman which increases the damage and AoE of roar attacks, can stagger any enemy, including most bosses. If you’re trying out this build, I highly recommend putting the majority of your points into strength and maxing out your best strength-based weapon. Once your opponent has been staggered by your roar, you can bring the hammer, or greatsword, down and deal huge amounts of damage.
When in doubt, run
Aside from bosses, there are plenty of challenging sections throughout Elden Ring. The Haligtree, Crumbling Farum Azula, and Leyndell are extremely difficult areas to traverse, packed with tons of enemies and mini-bosses. Whenever you first encounter new areas, you might feel tempted to try to battle through every mob you find, but the truth is you can simply run past most of the game.
Elden Ring players agreed that running is the single most valuable tool in your arsenal. Running from one Site of Grace to the next is undoubtedly the fastest way to breeze through the game. This certainly won’t work whenever facing off against bosses in their arena, but it can certainly get you there.
An easier way to beat the Godskin Duo
The Godskin Duo is one of the most challenging bosses in Crumbling Farum Azula. This two-on-one encounter is heavily weighted in the bosses’ favor. Whenever you heal or try to focus on one, you can expect the other to attack your blindside. U/duck_dodgers_esq reminds players, however, that you can simply ignore one of the Godskins.
The Godskin Duo share a single health bar, meaning that an attack on either the Godskin Noble or Apostle will deal damage to the bosses’ overall health. The Nobel is certainly the more difficult of the two to fight, with wider attacks and devastating rolling attacks. Comparatively, the Apostle is the easier target. Whenever you eventually slay the Apostle, you will only need to wait out the Godskin Noble for a few moments before he spawns yet another Apostle. From here, just target this easier opponent again to clear this fight.
