Beat game with a large strength weapon + greatshield. Wasn't too bad.

[gungadin22000]

Having only beaten Nioh 2 and DS2, I realise that I am notoriously bad at soulslikes, considering the dodgerolling is unnatural to me, so I rather wanted to see if I could facetank my way through the game by wielding a heavy shield, heavy armour and the biggest beatstick I could find while using zero sorceries or incantations. I had been warned by many a poster on these boards that this playstyle is nigh-on impossible, so I set out to test it.

It was fine, honestly, and required a far lower amount of gittin gud than learning the timing for every single dodgeroll in the game.

Once you get a greatshield (pretty much any will do, although some are better than others), you are in business. Regular enemies can be blocked at next to no life loss and with minimal stamina loss and then guard-countered for massive damage.

I noticed that many folks will say "oh, shield are useless, I run golden shield which has 100% phys reduction and still get clobbered!" Well, shield TYPE also seems to count for blocking, and with a greatshield your blocks will often cause staggers in themselves, something smaller shields just don't do. Basically, my takeaway from playing ER is that you should go small parry shield, greatshield or just don't bother with a shield at all.

I found the colossal weapons to be a tiny bit too slow for my tastes as well as too heavy, so I went with the next best thing. My go-to weapon for the game was firstly the Battle Hammer, then the Great Stars warmace for maximal bonkiness. Even bosses got staggered and could be critical'ed with 3-4 jumping attacks or guard counters, which quite often lead to comically unfair fights. Godfrey's phase 1 and Radagon were both easy as pie, guard countered to death with me being able to heal through any damage that might get through.

The very mobile bosses, on the other hand, were often a huge pain due to the slowness of the strength weapons, and constant greatshielding is far from invulnerable. As easy as Godfrey was, Horah Loux was a pretty brutal beatdown of constant grapple attacks and too intense combos for your stamina to regen in between flurries, and Malekith was impossible for my huge mace to catch and his life-draining attacks give zero ♥♥♥♥♥ about your shield strength.

One interesting thing about the large weapon playstyle is that it really highlights how powerful the jump attack is. Once I realised the jump attack comes out faster, is safer, has more range and does equal damage to a standing heavy attack, I basically did NO other attack for the entire game, never even bothering to use a normal attack. Normal attacks with big strength weapons are way too slow to spam and seem to me to just not do enough damage to warrant not just doing more jump attacks. I consider this to be a significant design flaw of Elden Ring, as I sometimes felt I was playing Super Mario rather than a soulslike.

I did use summons (demihumans or Latenna for sniper support) for almost all major bossfights, but they generally weren't very useful for the late-game bosses as they did too little damage and died too quickly to really be worthwhile as tanks. All victories were due to supreme beatstickery.

Mind you, I never did fight Malenia, so I cannot comment on how viable a strength weapon strategy is against her. But all in all, I feel that I can safely say that GS + heavy armour + strength build was a pretty safe option for my first playthrough of the game and I'd recommend it for other poor players who'd like to try their hand at melee rather than magic.

Stats at end of game: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2785633593

[Jester]

Honestly strength build isn't as bad people are making it out to be lol. But I wasn't using any great shield though but I am powerstancing two big weapons It's pretty much my entire experience in the previous games you just stagger everyone before they could do actual damage to you. I did have problems with Malenia but to be fair that witch is playing sekiro. Otherwise the entire game is safe sailing

[Ikka]

I think everything is staged to be successful in this game if planned properly around what people desire to do. It might not be as easy for some to plan though, and that isn't a jab at them either.

[Juub]

Originally posted by Pathetic Sort Ahead:

Honestly strength build isn't as bad people are making it out to be lol. But I wasn't using any great shield though but I am powerstancing two big weapons It's pretty much my entire experience in the previous games you just stagger everyone before they could do actual damage to you. I did have problems with Malenia but to be fair that witch is playing sekiro. Otherwise the entire game is safe sailing

Yeah, I think a lot of impressions were early to mid-game. People were saying magic was OP and strength was weak within days after release when the vast majority were nowhere near the end.

Magic to me was good until mid-game then completely faltered late-game. Strength with a bleed build on the contrary absolutely tore apart enemies and bosses.

[urabe mikoto]

Greatshields are easy mode

[gungadin22000]

What strength weapon did you use to bleed stuff? Great Stars has inherent bleed, but I didn't really proc it that often due to the slow attack speed and my aforementioned constant jump attack strategy.

[gungadin22000]

Originally posted by urabe mikoto:

Greatshields are easy mode

Indeed, was rather the point of the thread. Many folks seem to disregard them for some reason.

[Mandalorian Deathknight]

only time i use a great shield is on the final boss the finger print one
due to the holy rest and and still use the blasphemous blade special to heal

[Happy Larry]

If greatshields are easy mode , then what you guys calling the magic build where u don't even need to roll/bash/parry properly to beat bossess. Easiest mode is magic dmg , let alone the strength build which is not that easy as it plays. Malenia was pain in the ass with strenght build just like the godskin duo and malekith.
If we talk about the game difficulty , obviously one of the easiest game from FromSoft because of stlye variety and many optional thing.
Go play Sekiro , thats where skills really matter :)

[Sabaithal]

Don't need to dodge when you kill everything so fast it doesn't have a chance to fight back >:D

[Juno Brier]

Greatshields do come at the tradeoff of being heavy, with the fingerprint one being like the single heaviest piece of equipment in the game.

Now add in using a colossal weapon, and enjoy having a talisman slot permanently occupied by the Arsenal Charm.

[Morton Koopa Jr.]

These games aren't that bad. There are ways to get through with relatively less effort. You found one of them.

[gungadin22000]

Major downside of strength playthrough in my book: half the weapons you would THINK would be big-♥♥♥♥-swinging strength weapons require absurdly high numbers in other stats to even wield. My playthrough was no magic and yet the game seems to demand that I level faith in particular to use half the damn boss weapons.

And what is up with Godrick's axe? 22 damn DEXTERITY to use? I only found 3 weapons I considered really good for my build: the Watchdog Staff, Battle Hammer and Great Stars. Most of the other ones had requirements I didn't want to level. At the end of the game, I purchased Godfrey's axe, since it only needed 14 dex. I leveled dex from 12 to 14 (at level 140 or so), only to find that it was less impressive than my Great Stars. Boss weapons for strength users are just not that impressive.

Whoever designed the strength weapons clearly had their girlfriend leave them for a 99 strength bodybuilder. No other explanation suffices.

[Jester]

Originally posted by gungadin22000:

Major downside of strength playthrough in my book: half the weapons you would THINK would be big-♥♥♥♥-swinging strength weapons require absurdly high numbers in other stats to even wield. My playthrough was no magic and yet the game seems to demand that I level faith in particular to use half the damn boss weapons.

And what is up with Godrick's axe? 22 damn DEXTERITY to use? I only found 3 weapons I considered really good for my build: the Watchdog Staff, Battle Hammer and Great Stars. Most of the other ones had requirements I didn't want to level. At the end of the game, I purchased Godfrey's axe, since it only needed 14 dex. I leveled dex from 12 to 14 (at level 140 or so), only to find that it was less impressive than my Great Stars. Boss weapons for strength users are just not that impressive.

Whoever designed the strength weapons clearly had their girlfriend leave them for a 99 strength bodybuilder. No other explanation suffices.

Bruh you're expected to finish the game at level 150 are you just dumping it all on strength for no reason? Also godricks rune flat out gives 5 attributes to everything anyway.

[gachi is manly]

Originally posted by Pathetic Sort Ahead:

Honestly strength build isn't as bad people are making it out to be lol. But I wasn't using any great shield though but I am powerstancing two big weapons It's pretty much my entire experience in the previous games you just stagger everyone before they could do actual damage to you. I did have problems with Malenia but to be fair that witch is playing sekiro. Otherwise the entire game is safe sailing

Yep. Pretty much my experience exactly playing power stanced colossal swords.