5 Crazy Useful Gameplay Tips in Elden Ring
Elden Ring is a fascinating game. Here are some tips that I hope will help players get more fun in the game.
1. Crystal Darts control golems
Fighting two Watchdogs can actually be easier than fighting just one. With just a few crystal dots you can stun and short-circuit the old tree burial Watchdogs causing them to attack anything around them. This sort of mind control effect lasts for 30 seconds which is more than enough time for them to kill anything else in the room. Dungeons are all throughout. This tip makes exploring the dungeon much easier in the Elden Ring. So why do crystal darts have this effect? A glintstone is embedded in the Watchdog staff. In my opinion, it seems like crystals were once a part of the watchdog’s creation.
2. Night Sorceries don’t trigger dodges
Elden Ring’s enemies do quite a lot of input reading. I’m sure you’re familiar with this. But did you know that there’s an entire class of sorcery that specifically does not trigger enemy dodges? These are the knight Sorceress and Bouchard. These are excellent against NPC Invaders or just bosses like Millennia. Actually being able to hit your enemy makes these spells pretty damn worth it sometimes. Knight Sorceress are designed to be assassination spells, which gives them a really nice piece of gameplay flavor. Since enemies can’t dodge them.
3. Crouch attacks can be powerful
People commonly underestimate how useful crouches are in this game. Of course, it lets you sneak up on enemies and if you hit an unaware enemy then you’ll do like 25% extra damage on your first hit. Crouching can make certain weapons more effective. For example, are typically lack a fast horizontal swing, but your Crouch R1 gives you quick access to one. As another example, colossal swords like the Guts Great Sword only have horizontal swings. But your crouched R1 gives you access to an insanely fast and long-range poke attack.
Alternatively, if you’re dual-wielding, you can even try a crouched L1 attack. So just consider weaving these into your playstyle if you want. It can completely change the viability of certain weapons.
4. Certain spells can be chain-casted
I have another really good tip that spell casters will appreciate. So you would have noticed that spells have a set cast time, right? Sorcerers like Carrion Slicer have a wind-up before you attack. However one really cool thing is you can make a lot of these spells come out a lot faster if you combo them with other spells and attacks. For example, you can remove the wind-up on the carrion slicer if you cast it right after a regular melee attack or cast it right after casting a different spell.
Here’s a comparison. As for incantations, magma breath comes out way faster if you use catch flame right before it, which actually goes a really long way to making magma breath a viable spell. There are a ton of other spells that work this way, and while the inputs can be a little bit tricky with the D-Pad, it’s a really fun high-skill cap thing that you can do to deepen the gameplay of your spellcaster. There are a lot of spells that combo in this way.
5. Weather affects damage
Did you know that weather can affect your damage? If it’s raining you’ll do around 10% less fire damage, but your lightning damage will be increased by 10%. In my testing, it was around 10%. And these effects even applied to enemies that were undercover from the rain. So I guess this shows that this effect applies to everything in an area, not just every enemy that’s wet per say. This rain effect is something you should really keep in mind. If you’re doing duels at the main academy gate in real Lucario. It seems to rain really often in Leonia and light builds will inherently be at an advantage here.
