fashion souls or not?

[xlightningx]

is it this time really important what to wear?

[Fineous🔥]

Outward appearance reflects the state of mind and more things. So look good and have enough endurance to wear decent stuff.

Certain items like War surgeon mask or the fungal crown give around a 10% extra attack power if you cause a negative status (bleed and poison in this case).
But in the end you want the maximun mitigation, all the negative status resistance above 100, elemental resistance above 20% and some poise like 40.

You can get that and still look good.....sod Varre mask....everyone and their mother uses it, i dont want to look like a damn NPC.

[Anewbous]

I'm wearing what I want

[Toad]

For PvE, late-game enemies do large amounts of damage and having percentage based defences from armour makes a huge difference, especially against bosses. You can augment your defences further with defensive talismans and consumables like boiled crab etc.

For PvP, your poise stat plays a much larger role in your efficiency against other players. You'll want minimum 51ish+ poise for most reasonably fast and popular weapons, and 103ish+ for heavier ones. There are others who probably know the exact best numbers to aim for, but that is around the ballpark figure.

[xlightningx]

oh ok, "But in the end you want the maximun mitigation, all the negative status resistance above 100, elemental resistance above 20% and some poise like 40." thats something new to the old souls games

so a mix between functionality and good looking will do the deal

[Fineous🔥]

Yup. Basically.

You also want a

https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Dragoncrest+Greatshield+Talisman

And for NG5 or above (when things really start to get nasry)

https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Spelldrake+Talisman

Combined with another elemental talisman (they stack) and incantations to increase elemental damage negation.

But the greatshield talisman im going to say it should be mandatory......everyone forced to use one because.....duck it....(no really it makes a huge difference).

And a Erdtree Favor+2 to get decent HP, stamina and equip load bonus so you can carry better gear.

[hoggfather_1105]

Fashion is my no.1 priority!:D You must look good when you die so often hey:D:D

[Argonaut]

What you wear doesn't matter at all unless you want to compete in PvP/Invasions/Duels.

For PvE it makes little to no difference because by endgame/NG+ everything that is remotely difficult and can't be brute forces(Mohg for example) will be 2-3 shotting you even at 60 vigor + armor.

What really will make a difference is buff stacking for damage as you can accumulate +100% damage easily even without taking into account math or exponential stacking. Keep in mind that everything past NG+ is just artificial difficulty stacking purely for the purpose of challenge so if your skill cannot carry you nothing will.

For PvP and the only actual tangible benefit of armor you want to have either 61 or 111 poise. At 61 poise light weapons won't instantly stagger you and at 111 poise even the heaviest of weapons won't stagger you on first hit. This is the only real reason to wear armor in endgame and for PvP if you are planning to take a hit you would rather do so by abusing hyperarmor on things like Lions claw or by tacking advantage of bleed stagger on lighter builds.

With all that being said skill really does trump absolutely everything.

TL;DR No. Wear what you want.

[Fineous🔥]

Hmmm i guess i can share my little experiment with you OP. After all this was about to shed some light about the functionality of gear, dispersing your doubts.

What you are about to see his the maximum amount of phsycal damage negation you can dream to get (yes i know....Bull goat can give a little bit more negation than Fire Prelate).

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2871663864

But "facta non verba" lets see how it works in action. (this is a NG9)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjei8eCHXuE

You would expect me to being able to "facetank" this guy....sadly you always will take a respectable percent of damage....so this was just a potion drinking simulator.

To make this essay less insuferable: Looks> Being able to light roll> Mitigation> Status resistance.

As always avoiding (light roll helps a lot with this) or absorbing the damage with a shield is the best answer, so really nothing changed from previous souls games.

Just have fun and make sure you leave a pretty bloodstain after they get you.

[Senki]

Yes it does matter but playing with fashion is also perfectly playable.

[Scuzz]

Originally posted by Anewbous:

I'm wearing what I want

This, more or less. Something you like that in theory helps.

[Coin]

It was always about fashion. Dependent on how good you are at least. If you were really bad at DS1 you'd wear Havels.

[Braiven]

Originally posted by xlightningx:

is it this time really important what to wear?

I was wearing what I want even though I played melee only with some other restrictions.

[coprobro]

When you look good you deal more damage. That's a fact.

[Crom]

I just use that first toon shape in the menu... Like everybody.

[oldboy]

Originally posted by xlightningx:

is it this time really important what to wear?

Yeah, you can go for some fashion souls, no problem, though personally, I find it hard to find gear that looks good :/