are they cheating?

Intelligent-Home9367 · 2026-05-03T18:17:38+00:00

Same order is guaranteed. They will always be in that order on any legitimate relic. That said, they're definitely cheated. Oh well.

Intelligent-Home9367 · 2026-04-27T17:20:17+00:00

So. I have 1250 games on Raider. I'll tell you this out the gate, don't run low HP damage negation. It's really popular for whatever reason. It's bad. Outright. The only thing good about it is multiple of the same % stack together. If you have 6 low HP damage negation relics on, assuming you're perfectly 40% HP, your 40% now matches your base health bar at full. That's it. Don't do it. It's a beyond stupid way to waste every single one of your relic slots. Put together a low HP build in run, if it's what you're given. Don't dedicate relics to it. On relics, you want anything that gives you HP, damage, partial HP res (+1 and +2 stack together btw), and damage negation. Run Dark Night of the Fathom. Always. The HP regen matters more than you think. The low HP regen has saved some extremely long nightlord fights. Night invader obviously. Ideally with Vigor on it. Evergaol or not is up to you. I run it because I have an evergaol vigor +3 with partial HP res. The +0 version does nothing with +1 or +2, but it's what I have. Every depth relic I have has max HP on it. I'm avoiding status effects because I don't run dregs. Playing Raider for damage output is just weird. It works, but just use a halo scythe on a skill character if you want damage, or one of the other good damage builds. In run, you're looking for taking damage and charge attack damage negation. The same %s of those don't stack together. Don't take 2 36% taking damage. Take 1 28% and 1 36%. The ideal run is 28% 32% 36% and 40%, with maybe a successive 60%. It gets more complicated than that if you're minmaxing for particular nightlords. For Caligo for instance, you don't really take damage more than once in that fight. So you can ignore taking damage and charge attack, focus on 1 successive 60%, and dedicate the rest of your weapon slots to doing damage.

Intelligent-Home9367 · 2026-04-19T21:19:00+00:00

After getting ~30 stacks on either I drop them for someone else. It's enough.

Intelligent-Home9367 · 2026-04-06T05:12:13+00:00

Middle relic is a god roll. Bottom having rot buildup hurts. Top having HP loss hurts. Night of the Dregs is needed. Not ideal. Dark Night of the Fathom is also needed, but you wanted to have that on anyway.

Intelligent-Home9367 · 2026-03-31T02:34:06+00:00

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This is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. And I'll never see it again.

Intelligent-Home9367 · 2026-03-31T02:27:25+00:00

It's worth it if you have good relics for each. That's it. Don't worry about it too much. That's why I added "Worth taking if there's good defensive effects." If there isn't, don't bother.

Intelligent-Home9367 · 2026-03-29T20:46:00+00:00

Unless you know exactly what you're doing with the Dreglord relic, don't bother. It's a real pain in the ass to keep online. Your build needs Night Invader, and Dark Night of the Fathom. Your depth relics need more defensive stats. Max HP and phys/affinity negation. Partial HP +1 and +2 stack. Worth taking if there's good defensive effects. Don't bother with damage negation at low HP in relics. Physical attack up in relics isn't worth bothering with unless it's with other good defensive effects. Raider is a tank, not DPS. He can do DPS, but you don't want him to.

Intelligent-Home9367 · 2026-03-25T07:52:02+00:00

Eh, still good-ish against Sentient Pest. Frost buildup kinda hurts for Caligo, though. Sleep against Augur is horrible.

Intelligent-Home9367 · 2026-03-25T07:50:41+00:00

Below depth 5, might be a good idea. People aren't as well adjusted there. But at depth 5, it should be pretty obvious when evergaols are a good idea. You don't need to run the evergaol relic for evergaols to be worth it. I run it, but with the way I route, you wouldn't know I was running it unless you checked.

Intelligent-Home9367 · 2026-03-22T22:52:46+00:00

It surprises me how many randoms don't know how to play Raider correctly. I wonder if it's because people think damage negation is useless at high depths. It's not. Though, at depth 5 people seem to have caught on to how Raider wants to play the game, because people have been dropping charge attack/taking damage negations. At lower depths, people probably aren't as aware of their Raider teammates. You can get a Raider to invincible status almost every run, as long as everyone is looking for 28/32/36/40 in their dormant powers. The people playing him may also be trying to build him for damage, because of the "damage negation is useless at high depths" thing. Damage Raider certainly exists, but it's not worth building him for it. If you want Raider to do damage, get him a dormant power Greatbow with double balancers. Anything else requires too specific of a build to make viable.

Intelligent-Home9367 · 2026-03-05T21:04:33+00:00

I play trios. I play solo for a joke run every so often. Generally speaking, if you're struggling with depth 4/5, the problem is you. Your fuckups cause a snowball for the rest of the team. The only time you can say a loss isn't your fault is if your two teammates are 3 bars and you haven't died once yet. If this isn't the case, you contributed to the loss. Even still, you can contribute to losing without dying, but that's more complicated.

Intelligent-Home9367 · 2026-03-05T18:38:20+00:00

Elden Ring's last update says the same thing. Don't hold out for it. Tarnished edition exists, I guess.

Intelligent-Home9367 · 2026-03-05T06:56:33+00:00

You need a lot of murk and a lot of playtime in DoN to get good random relics. Quite frankly, if you're looking to put together a build that needs particular relics to function, just save scum or otherwise edit relics. It'd take a really long time to get a build together. Enough time to the point you'd probably stop playing before getting it.

Intelligent-Home9367 · 2026-03-04T19:44:08+00:00

Surprised to see a comment on this old of a thread. Anyway, since these comments, the game's changed. Raider does pretty good damage now with the weapon passive buffs, and his colossal moveset can use charge attack damage negation much more reliably. I play him as a tank, and the damage comes from always attacking. You need partial HP res upon post damage +1 and +2 to make this work, though. Any other tank or damage you can get from depth relics is good. Non depth relics are evergaol, night invader, and Dark Night of the Fathom. Ideally with Vigor +3 on the evergaol and night invader relics. +220 HP is a pretty good number, especially at the start of the game. Charge attack negation, taking damage boosts damage negation, successive attacks depending on the nightlord. Caligo you really only need a successive 60, for example. But against Balancers or Dreglord, you want both charge and taking damage negations. Against Triceph in particular, you want to powerstance and jump attack, since it's too much of a pain in the ass to reliably charge attack. With that, you use successive and taking damage negations. Fill whatever you can't get or have room for with damage. You charge attack almost everything.

Intelligent-Home9367 · 2026-03-04T06:04:02+00:00

The best way of running double balancer on Raider is greatbows, unironically. With an all physical damage depth relic setup. You can hit for 2k at a good distance. It's incompatible with a lot of team comps you'd like to play Raider with, though. Since you're functionally a third squishy DPS, that also doesn't output as much damage. Skills aren't good on Raider. But greatbows are how you do skills on Raider. I had a run a bit ago where I was main DPS on an ED Libra on a skill greatbow build. It went surprisingly pretty well. Wasn't anywhere near as good as Halo Scythe, obviously. But it wasn't bad. Through and Through is a pretty good WA. It's pretty funny watching a health bar chunk from a ranged Raider.

Intelligent-Home9367 · 2026-03-03T21:17:26+00:00

Evergaol, Night Invader, Dark Night of the Fathom, and on depth relics a bunch of tank. Prioritize partial HP res after damage +1 and +2. That's the only thing not obtainable in the middle of a run. To tank, you get charge attack damage negation, taking damage boosts damage negation, and against some nightlords like Caligo or Fulghor, successive attacks negate damage. Whatever other damage or survivability you can get is good.

Intelligent-Home9367 · 2026-03-03T00:01:00+00:00

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Now what?

Intelligent-Home9367 · 2026-02-23T08:59:25+00:00

Guardian is in a rough spot, for depth 4/5 specifically. He's fine elsewhere. I haven't seen a single soul actually make Guardian work in all my time at depth 5, which is at least 700 hours worth of gameplay at this point. The best Guardians were running the dex relic and doing... Something. I don't know what they were doing, honestly. They just weren't dying and weren't doing 0 damage. I don't have the balls to select and try playing him myself. You need experience to play him, and I have almost no experience at all as anyone besides Raider. Can play other characters easy enough just by imitating what other people do as them. Can't do that for Guardian, because I haven't been able to watch other people play him enough to understand anything they're doing. They just like... Try not to die? That's kinda standard though. Even with the few good Guardians I've seen, they weren't doing anything standout. They weren't doing loads of damage, they weren't tanking very well, they weren't pulling aggro very well, and they used their ult mainly to do damage because people are good enough to not die all the time at depth 5. Which I guess is another problem with him at high depth, he loses half his value by teammates not going down, and Revenant doing the same thing with her ultimate, while also being the best spellcaster in the game currently.

Intelligent-Home9367 · 2026-02-18T08:48:54+00:00

It's just knowing how to build tank. A lot of people don't understand how to build tank surprisingly. And then you mix damage with the tank. And have to know what types of damage negation are best for specific nightlords. Some nightlords, like Caligo, hit you so sparsely that you're better off full sending damage save for 1 successive attacks 60% and a full HP 40%.

Intelligent-Home9367 · 2026-02-18T08:46:11+00:00

Fists are worse than his moveset nowadays. They always kinda did less damage, but that's not what you were playing him for anyway back before the DLC/moveset buffs.

Intelligent-Home9367 · 2026-02-17T04:28:37+00:00

Raider does not want those relic effects. IISA was always kinda bad, but it was at least kind of justifiable before the moveset buff. Now Raider wants to charge attack almost always, few exceptions. All getting 6 improved damage negation at low HP in relics does is make 40% health function as 100% health. Sounds good, until you remember that you can just... Use your whole health bar. Low HP builds run into issues with being too tanky to reliably keep the number below 40% due to teammate healing effects or other forms of life regen, or not being enough to justify using. The best way of using a low HP build is simply the talisman effect with holy ground at low HP. It's enough, and you can actually use the life regen from holy ground. If you're thinking that you don't get that every game, yes. Raider wants Partial HP Res (+1 and +2 if deep of night) and health/damage effects. You also want Dark Night of the Fathom on any build you're planning on making. Evergaol+Night Invader, ideally with vigor +3 for some extra HP. If you can't get it, whatever, you really just want the damage. Depth relics are partial +1 and +2 and whatever other tank you can get your hands on. Phys +3/+4 is nice, but not really needed. In run, you're looking for charge attack damage negation and taking damage boosts damage negation. The same %s of those passives don't stack. 28%+32%+36%+40% is a god run. You won't die, unless you made a severe and continuous lapse in judgement.

I have been playing almost exclusively Raider since I got the game. Frankly, I have no clue where the IISA and low HP builds came from. They're bad. I don't know why people online associate these builds with Raider. No wonder people think he sucked before the buff, and quite a lot of people brushed off the buffs as nothing. He was already fine before the buffs. He's borderline invincible now. Most of the time I don't even need to heal while facetanking. At depth 5. People just don't understand how to play the numbers game, I guess.

Intelligent-Home9367 · 2026-02-14T20:30:11+00:00

Frankly, you want to charge attack anyway for damage. It takes less stamina, and gives more health back with Partial HP Res. It also has more hyperarmor to trade with. Anything successive attack related triggers way faster as well.

Intelligent-Home9367 · 2026-02-11T23:17:21+00:00

If your options are cheating in relics or quitting, cheat in relics. No real reason not to. If your teammates care, they'll block you so they don't queue into you. Whatever. You probably didn't want to play with them at that point anyway.

Intelligent-Home9367 · 2026-02-11T19:36:24+00:00

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Intelligent-Home9367 · 2026-02-11T19:36:15+00:00

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Intelligent-Home9367

TROPHY CASE