What is this "fashion souls"

[Venom462]

Soy for a nooby question but I hear it a lot.

Does armour actually matter or should I just make my dude look the ♥♥♥♥?

[rkmugen]

I've only completed parts of Limgrave, Weeping Peninsula, Caelid+Dragonbarrow, and Liurnia, so anything north of these areas are still a mystery to me. That being said, even the places I've listed usually have caves/dungeons/catacombs that have large areas of poison and/or rot. When i come across them, I play it safe and switch to a combination of armor pieces that give me the most resistance rating. Then, when I come up against an area boss, I see what type of damage they do, then switch my armor that offers the best negation to as many types of damage they deal. But this strategy doesn't really work in PVP, unless you are still far away and not yet found by the other player/invader/hunter, and if you can actually switch armor pieces very quickly, on the fly. I can't do that... ie. navigate the menus in under 500-750 milliseconds.

[Caramel_Clown]

Armor stats matter. But the rule of cool always beats the rule as written, as the phrase goes. First few characters you'll probably try to maximize your build potential. Then as you have the game mechanics sorted it won't matter as much. I usually prefer my character to look great, and work around that if it turns out it hurts my playthrough.

[MundM]

Of course armor matters, in terms of damage numbers and some armor pieces even provide stat boosts. Fashions souls means, you make your character look good, no matter the stats.

These games by Fromsoft are 100% skill based (some crappy unfair stuff aside, but people do make no hit runs, so there's that), which means if you're good enough, you don't need armor anyway, so you can just focus on having a flashy looking character.

[Scuzz]

Origineel geplaatst door Twistybanana:

Fashion Souls:
"When one becomes comfortable enough with mechanics, armour and damage negation no longer matter so one looks to be fashionable"

Two days in a row I have seen someone basically say "git gud" without actually writing it. Very good.

[John Titor]

Origineel geplaatst door Scuzz:

Origineel geplaatst door Twistybanana:

Fashion Souls:
"When one becomes comfortable enough with mechanics, armour and damage negation no longer matter so one looks to be fashionable"

Two days in a row I have seen someone basically say "git gud" without actually writing it. Very good.

Git gud, scrub.

[Sonnenbank]

It basically just means:

you are good enough at the game so that you dont care about stats.
you only care about looks/fashion

[vukotlak]

How can you look good when you roll on the floor like a drunken shmock who wants to impress his "Friends" with his white belt judo knowledge.

[Dr. Professor Commander]

The concept of "Armor means very little, so wear whatever you want to look cool"
I'm one of these people.

Armor does help, but in my opinion the difference is trivial compared to the effects that you can get from talismans/consumable items/incantation buffs. It becomes progressively more true, and false the further you get into NG+ cycles too. True because at NG+7 and up if you get hit by a boss, and only have 45 VIG for example, there's a pretty fair chance that you're going to get one-shotted with, or without armor on.

My take is just to wear the coolest looking, but least cumbersome armor I can find. It's ideal to keep your weight ratio below 30% for max rolling speed, because mobility will always provide you with a better defense than armor since you don't need to worry about having armor if you're agile and can dodge effectively (increasing endurance for carry capacity can compensate for some heavier flashy gear to an extent).

Started taking this approach in Dark Souls 3. Since Elden Ring dropped, I've never looked at any of my armor's stats in-depth even once, just whether or not I'm above the 30% threshold for weight capacity or if the armor piece listed a special effect in it's description.
I usually run around wearing the full Zamor set, Raging Wolf set, or the Haligtree knight set, but with the Raging Wolf helm (It matches the Haligtree armor surprisingly well, as does the Zamor mask)

In practically every past Souls title you could "roll through" every single attack and take zero damage, which is why it's fairly easy to play past FS titles armorless as long as you could time the i-frames perfectly, and generally enemies that had moves that were able to roll catch (where an attack will still hit you because the timing of your rolls won't match up, even at the fastest roll speed) were uncommon and seen more exclusively among bosses. ER has a significantly higher amount of enemies/bosses with such combos that pressure you to find alternatives where rolling every attack isn't an option.


I buff with incantations and consumables when/if necessary, and it's usually enough, though I only use defensive buffs if I'm really, *REALLY* having a hard time. For example NG+6 Radagon/Elden Beast had me equipping several talismans for defense against Holy and physical damage, as well as using defensive incantations because any armor I was using *still* wasn't effective enough that late into my NG+ cycles... The mass of AoE attacks can really get you when you least expect them in this game lol. Most of the time, I focus on damage boosting buffs/items though.
Also don't underestimate having plenty of Boiled Prawns available for use to boost physical damage defense :)

TL;DR

It's better to keep your weight capacity below 30% because fast rolling is a better defense than any armor stat, giving you the freedom to look cool, and avoid dying frequently (as long as you're good at timing the i-frames of a roll). Rolling through every possible attack, while finding alternatives for avoiding certain attacks that roll catch like Malenia's Waterfowl Dance that are practically impossible to dodge just by rolling is your best defense. After all why worry about how much damage you can take when you could practice not getting hit in the first place so you don't have to worry. :)

[MEGA MAN]

man they finally should just add the arena DLC with tons of weapons, spells and clothes - and maybe funny pits and chained wolfs on the edges and people watching like in a colosseum, for a funny pvp experience. . .

[Yard-Dog®]

Ozzy Osbourne says it's about fashion.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2852847145

[Dr.Abscondus]

I'm waiting for them to put in the ability to have armor skins over top of whatever you actually have equipped. That way you can be safe and still look real purty. Cyberpunk just added this feature, but it took them almost two years to do it. I'm the best dressed degenerate killer in Night City. Yes that's right, I am a sharp dressed man.

[MEGA MAN]

Origineel geplaatst door Dr.Abscondus:

I'm waiting for them to put in the ability to have armor skins over top of whatever you actually have equipped. That way you can be safe and still look real purty. Cyberpunk just added this feature, but it took them almost two years to do it. I'm the best dressed degenerate killer in Night City. Yes that's right, I am a sharp dressed man.

but it makes no sense - then u can even make sure u could put the poise and dmg from an ultimate GS on a knife but with the same attack speed -.-* i think its important for the tactics in pvp too: for example to know what im fighting against - so i use rather something against physical or mage stuff

[Caramel_Clown]

Origineel geplaatst door Dr.Abscondus:

I'm waiting for them to put in the ability to have armor skins over top of whatever you actually have equipped. That way you can be safe and still look real purty. Cyberpunk just added this feature, but it took them almost two years to do it. I'm the best dressed degenerate killer in Night City. Yes that's right, I am a sharp dressed man.

This doesn't make any sense at all, if you think about it for more than half a second. Cyberpunk is a singleplayer game. Multiplayer competitive games that do have it only have weapons and items being stat sticks. It is not the case in Elden Ring. If you obscure items and prevent others from identifying them you open doors to all kinds of shenanigans.

[Scuzz]

Origineel geplaatst door John Titor:

Origineel geplaatst door Scuzz:

Two days in a row I have seen someone basically say "git gud" without actually writing it. Very good.

Git gud, scrub.

[Ermitaum]

Fashion beats stats any day!