[Spoilers] First Clear - Impressions & Questions

[Swanky]

Did my first clear last night, Radiance ending, pure strength build.
Overall I'm quite positive about the game, whatever the feeling was pre 2.0, LotF felt very solid to play. Staying medium weight throughout, never felt the movement was sluggish or unprecise. Weapon hit feedback felt good. Graphics are gorgeous and even though I had no performance issues the game probably could use a little more optimization.
I got the Perch key early and subsequently ran into the high level area that eventually leads to the Manse. Got the bell head sinner there way too early but also got a good chunk of upgrade materials early which skyrocketed my damage for most of the midgame because a +7 weapon does indeed do damage.
Other than that, bosses felt a bit on the easy side, I was expecting to dying more to them. I think the worst of it was Judge Cleric who I died 4 times to.

However, the final two bosses of the radiance playthrough were very underwhelming. Not bad per se but rather something I'd expect around the midway point of a game, or in case of Adyr, being a phase 1. Do other endings have different "final" bosses?

Now, I got the radiance ending but the ending also told me I was tainted. Does that mean there are variations of the same ending, eg. ways to surviving the Radiance ending?

Far as NPCs go, I got Byron, Dunmire, Stomund & the Tortured Woman quests in my first playthrough. Never rescued the stoned girl in the swamps. Byron & Stomund basically did themselves, but had to look up locations for the other two occasionally, because soulslike quest design, I guess.
Now if I'm preparing playthroughs for light or pyro characters, do I need to save specific NPC questlines in order to get the good stuff? I know the Tortured Woman sells pyro spells...

On the note of Radiance and Infernal, are there also Umbra magic? Where do I find them, how do I use them, and with which attributes do they scale?

On the note of pyro, Castle Bramis has a lot of Adyr type enemies. How heavily do different enemy types resist damage types? How many problems would a pyromancer face there compared to a physical sword user?

What is the lowest requirement a catalyst can have? 12 for radiance?

Does using the pre-nerf enemy density modifier also change boss health?

[mayhem523]

The umbral ending has the real final boss, and there was a time when they overtuned bosses and it was absolutely brutal. It took hours for people to beat it even with coop. I'm sure in the current state you can slap it around.. hate what they've done to the bosses.

Adyr always sucked though.. it's just an exposition ending I don't even consider him a boss.

Modifier doesn't do anything to boss health, ng+ will buff them, aside from that we have to wait for buffs/more modifiers.

You can do Bramis Castle with inferno you just won't do quite as much damage. If you have points in str or ag you can always equip a bow with holy arrows, or use holy salts, holy damage ring etc. If you have 20 in rad you can use the corrupted clerics sword which does several damage types.

Radiance and inferno obviously scale with those attributes, and umbral is a combination of the 2.

Spells are found throughout the game as usual, from npc shops, drops, chests etc. Molhu sells umbral, Dunmire sells radiance, Prisoner for inferno.

[HerbertWess]

If you have done Dunmire and Stomund questlines i think you got radiance covered mostly, plus Dunmire's catalyst is S tier maxed. For inferno related spells, i recommend following Damarose quest, because she will eventually sell you most of the Adyr aura spells, and they are amongst the most useful (Adyr's rage).

Umbral is cool, it uses both inferno and radiance (similar gimmick to dark magic in Souls). I found out most use of Latimer javelin (bought from Hushed Saint), barrage of echoes, and the rest are mostly niche (i don't like the speed of umbral spells compared to radiance). You either get basic catalyst from Molhu or you find some around the game as usual (probably want Berescu's at some point). Molhu will sell quite a few of the basic spells as game progresses. You also can use a ring to cast umbral with other catalyst types if you wish.

[Swanky]

Thanks, both of you. Makes planning around the next playthroughs a bit easier. :)
Good to know about Damarose, was a bit worried I killed the quest when she wasn't in the Gorge after killing the Rector subboss there, but she just moved on to the shrine. Phew.

[Gargoyle]

Originally posted by Swanky:

Thanks, both of you. Makes planning around the next playthroughs a bit easier. :)
Good to know about Damarose, was a bit worried I killed the quest when she wasn't in the Gorge after killing the Rector subboss there, but she just moved on to the shrine. Phew.

You can farm those Kinrangr guys for Ice spells which require Rad/INF.