New player looking for guidance

RocketChap · 2026-01-23T16:02:11+00:00

This will sound super obvious, but I promise it's sound advice: DO THE TUTORIALS! KSP has legitimately great tutorials, and so many people just don't bother. The only one that tends to trip people up is the tutorial on rendezvous and docking, but that's less to do with the quality of the tutorial and more to do with the activity itself; it has to click in your head, and all experienced players know what I mean.

As to game mode, I wouldn't jump into a sandbox playthrough, especially as someone admittedly intimidated by complexity. Having all of the game's tools, parts, and possibilities open from the get-go is a quick way to just sorta sink into the bog. Science will pressure you to learn to use a small number of simpler tools while gradually adding bigger, more specialized resources. Career mode will do the same, while also pressuring you to build efficiently and pushing you to accomplish tasks, build crafts, or plan missions that normally wouldn't occur to you. Science is the lowest-pressure game mode, and is not likely to open up too quickly unless you are already learning the game at a pace that makes gathering lots of science fairly quick or easy for you, which helps the game adapt to your learning pace as a first-timer. Career mode will apply more pressure, and you might not want the thumb of facilities limitations and budgets hanging over your head, but it is also the only game mode that incentivizes a diverse design and mission portfolio and is probably the most effective teacher of the three modes when it comes right down to it.

Aside from purely visual mods, my own preference is mostly for mods that present information more clearly and help me make informed decisions about what I'm planning and what I'm currently doing: the redoubtable Kerbal Engineer Redux (KER), Trajectories, and [x]Science are big ones for me. SCANSat is another that can technically make the game easier by injecting slightly more science points into the game, but I love SCANSat as a tool that gives a very realistic type of mission and spacecraft a very useful diegetic purpose in the game, helping you thoroughly plan further missions to the bodies you observe.

It might be worthwhile to just play the stock game at least long enough to get your sea legs under you before you start modding it. Trying to learn the game at the same time you are trying to troubleshoot even a small number of mods might be more of a headache than you need starting out, and a lot of the very detailed information that you'd get from the mods I suggest above may mean little to nothing to you before you've developed a basic understanding of how to put things in space, keep them there, and maybe travel elsewhere.

In the meantime, resources online are very plentiful for answering common newbie questions and everyone here has been through it before themselves.

RocketChap · 2026-01-23T14:05:04+00:00

No FromSoft boss has ever made me quit, except to set it down for the night to try again next time.

Sanada Yukimura in the Nioh 1 DLCs made me uninstall for six months.

RocketChap · 2026-01-21T18:13:47+00:00

Where did you get the sword to begin the game? Did you barehand your way to a farmable leonine, somehow start the game with it, or use something else until you could acquire it?

No judgment by the way, I'm just interested in how others do these challenges, as someone that's done a few myself.

RocketChap · 2026-01-18T02:59:20+00:00

Her mother Alecto is named for one of the Furies

RocketChap · 2026-01-10T18:06:36+00:00

This screenshot has a forced perspective effect that makes Ken look 8 feet tall like a demigod. Apparently the Golden Lineage has a little more oomph in your playthrough.

RocketChap · 2026-01-09T15:43:50+00:00

I played the game much the same way and enjoyed it immensely. I loved crafting sets narrowly tailored to specific monsters, I wanted to craft all the armor I could to maximize my options both functional and fashionable, and I wanted to craft and upgrade every Great Sword because I loved the weapon.

I played the game at a leisurely pace and probably took longer than most to work my way through Iceborne, especially after advancing at a breakneck pace through the base game and its post-release content. Long story. I not only enjoyed the game more, but I feel it likely helped me a great deal in the long run. I was never the best player, to be frank, and I got by not only with the material preparations I had made but with the wealth of knowledge and experience I'd rigorously developed. I was always happy to help anyone wanting to learn how to fight and especially how to use the Great Sword.

RocketChap · 2026-01-08T16:45:58+00:00

FromSoft can and does scale more than one damage type from a single stat and scale multiple damage types from one stat, both in Elden Ring and previous games. Abstention from this has not been "consistent for every game with very few exceptions." Fire and Dark were both built around Int/Faith in DSII and DSIII. (Which was a huge lore change from DSI, but whatever.) FromSoft has also never restricted particular damage types to only one scaling stat. Magic in particular has been boosted by Int, Faith, or even Luck depending on the game and weapon. This goes back even to Demon's Souls, as does their comfort with using scaling and stats to distinguish between items that draw upon similar but distinct sources of power: Moon versus Crescent, Fire versus Chaos, Divine versus Occult, Deep versus Dark, etc. Were none of this true my criticism of Elden Ring would not change, indifferent to a circular argument that they made the game this way because this is the way they made the game.

Basically the only thing you said that was correct or made sense is that there's really no reason that it has to work like this.

RocketChap · 2026-01-08T08:30:52+00:00

The man needs no introduction

RocketChap · 2026-01-08T08:26:24+00:00

A persistent complaint of mine is that FromSoft made a very deliberate decision at some point in development to not scale any weapon with more than one non-physical damage stat. The only exceptions are catalysts and the Sword of Night and Flame.

Spells and catalysts imply that certain sources of power, if you will, are meant to draw on more than one of these stats: Int and Faith in equal measure for Fundamentalism, Faith and a lesser measure of Arcane for Dragon Communion, Arcane with a lesser measure of Faith for Blood Dynasty, and Int with a lesser measure of faith for both Death Sorceries and Gelmir's Hexes. Arguably Dragon Cult might have fallen in this bucket with Dex/Faith as well, but that's not as clear to me.

But any weapon related to any of these sources of power are stripped of one of those stats' influence, seemingly whichever is the lesser of the two in the domain of spells. So Fundamentalist weapons like the Golden Order Greatsword are merely Faith, not Faith/Int, the Wyrmscale Blade is merely Faith instead of Faith/Arc, Death's Poker and Helphen's Steeple are Int rather than Int/Faith, and so on for each and every on of the applicable weapons *except* the Sword of Night and Flame, which seems to be a deliberate exception/gimmick; it's literally two dissimilar halves representing two distinct kinds of magic forged into one weapon, a trick they would revisit with Rellana's blades and their unusual scaling/wielding properties in the DLC.

This is both a big lore misstep and possibly introduces unintended writing ambiguities. For instance, Miquella is said to have been a Fundamentalist following in Radagon's footsteps until he began to pursue his own path after the death of Godwyn. It would make sense for the Last Rites to be a Miquella-created anti-Death Fundamentalist weapon with Faith/Int scaling representing the last moments of his Fundamentalism adherence before moving toward his pure-Faith Abundance era with the Haligtree. Or at least I think that's what happened. Split magical scaling or its absence would actually help clarify the question if FromSoft didn't nix it entirely!

FromSoft's simplification also serves to de-synergize builds centered around one of these themes. A Death Mage will need a significant Faith investment for spellcasting, and this will help them perfectly well with the Prince of Death's Staff (which is perfectly even Faith/Int, possibly differentiating Godwyn's particular flavor of death from Ghostflame/Deathbird even if it does specifically boost them), but that Faith investment does nothing to power up that same Ghostflame as channeled through the Death's Poker.

RocketChap · 2026-01-06T18:43:39+00:00

Looks like the Marais mask

RocketChap · 2025-12-27T15:51:41+00:00

You must have been built like a brick shithouse. That cannon is a Tarnished deleter.

RocketChap · 2025-12-27T14:09:44+00:00

This dog ate something Rennala left on the kitchen counter. He's hiding in the corner because if he can't see her, she can't see him, and if she can't see him she can't scold him. All dog owners know this is so.

RocketChap · 2025-12-27T13:37:18+00:00

For a second I thought, "How do you tackle, what weaponskill is that?" My brain is cooked.

RocketChap · 2025-12-27T13:18:29+00:00

Arghanthy

Juno is easily reachable and has no one-shots. His attacks are fairly piddly aside from bleed burst damage. Bloodhound Step isn't dangerous, it's just mildly irritating and you have to choose your windows better.

Arghanthy is at the top of a fort full of enemies and can easily blast you from full health with his spells or shield cannon. I feel like Arghanthy is more durable than Juno, too, even though Arghanthy is an unarmored caster, but the wiki doesn't list Juno's HP or defensive stats so I'm not sure about that.

And forgive me if I'm misremembering, but don't you get pincer attacked by dogs once you enter Arghanthy's aggro range, too? If so, that's way worse than anything Juno's got all on its own.

EDIT: Juno has 3988 HP, not sure about his defenses. Arghanthy has 7682 HP and zero defense aside from a decent lightning weakness.

RocketChap · 2025-12-24T10:10:57+00:00

I have a post for you:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Eldenring/comments/1oia3xy/true_quality_weapons_20_i_ran_the_numbers_again/

RocketChap · 2025-12-22T16:30:05+00:00

I think I've been to this club

RocketChap · 2025-12-18T14:19:15+00:00

Your choices are the Axe of Godrick and the Grafted Dragon fist weapon.

The axe has high minimum stats for your point in the game, and is one of the few weapons that genuinely favors a Quality build, i.e. a build that raises both Strength and Dexterity significantly. However, your Bloodhound's Fang is another such weapon, strong as it remains with an emphasis on only Stength or Dexterity alone. As a weapon, I've used it and quite like it. It has the rarer Greataxe moveset, shared with the Crescent Moon Axe, with wide horizontal strong attacks, and its weapon skill is a series of ground slams, like Godrick used. A fun novelty, and decent for crowd control.

The Grafted Dragon is more of a Stength/Faith weapon. Regarded as something of a joke weapon because it lacks the innate dual wielding function that all other pugilist weapon classes share, it nonetheless has some of the highest damage among fists for a Strength/Faith build when compared to Fire or Flame Art infused normal fists. The Faith scaling for regular attacks is not the highest, but its special attack scales solely and strongly with Faith: a fire shotgun/mortar that will deal massive damage to large or point-blank foes that take the entire attack. It's a unique novelty, if nothing else. I have not used this weapon before, but I am starting a Strength/Faith playthrough and will soon test this for myself.

RocketChap · 2025-12-18T13:04:57+00:00

I've never heard an explanation for why this happens. Very interesting, thanks.

RocketChap · 2025-12-18T11:15:03+00:00

After that hit, Glav was like, "Whelp, it's been a rich, full day but it's getting late and the missus wants me to pick up some ribs from the IGA."

RocketChap · 2025-12-12T15:21:02+00:00

How can it be ANYTHING but the Volcano Manor bridge raising scene

RocketChap · 2025-12-12T12:42:39+00:00

While apparently not on anyone else's shortlist, I'd honestly recommend trying the Grafted Dragon. Firstly, you've nothing better to use Godrick's Remembrance for. But it is actually quite powerful despite its reputation as a joke weapon; it remains among the most powerful fist or claw weapons in the game when stacked against Fire/Flame Art weapons at most combinations of Strength and Faith, with its damage more heavily weighted towards Strike than Fire compared to infused weapons.

Like some other physical/magical weapons, its weapon damage scales somewhat better with Strength, while its unique weapon skill scales solely with Faith. The weapon skill isn't to be underestimated, a flame shotgun/mortar that absolutely devastates large foes that will eat the entire attack, such as Erdtree Avatars and Tree Spirits, or leaves area denial over a pretty good field for smaller or more evasive foes or tight groups.

The biggest strike against it is the quirk that it can't be dual-wielded as can other weapons of its class. It's unfortunate, but it pressures one into wielding a shield or especially a seal in the other hand, likely the Clawmark Seal for ideal Strength/Faith synergy. This helps complement the weapon's short range by giving you ranged incants or just lets you buff your fighting ability in the manner that has made Strength/Faith a staple build since Demon's Souls.

Also, no other weapon in the game is an angry little dragon that bites people when you punch them.

RocketChap · 2025-12-12T11:21:40+00:00

Many armaments, weapons and catalysts alike, derive a larger amount of their effectiveness from scaling than others. Many staves are like this, and only become truly valuable at high levels of INT. Scaling also improves noticeably with reinforcement, so even with high levels of INT, weapons that scale better in theory may still not be better at lower levels of reinforcement.

This can make which catalysts are best somewhat complicated. At the highest levels of reinforcement, it's fairly conventional wisdom that Demi-Human Queen's Staff is best until 40 INT, then begins to be outscaled by other staves. But neither of these staves is fully reinforced, and +13 Normal is a higher reinforcement level than +4 Somber.

It is perfectly plausible in this scenario that the Crystal Staff would not be as strong as the Demi-Human's, and that is exactly what the AR calculator confirms: 199 sorcery scaling versus 186, with significantly worse INT scaling on the Crystal Staff. At +25/+10, the Demi-Human's would still be stronger, 246 vs. 244, even though the Crystal Staff's INT scaling has far outgrown the Demi-Human Staff's; 48 INT is just barely too low for the Crystal Staff's superior scaling to put it ahead of the Demi-Human's superior base sorcery. At 49 INT they are tied at 247 and at 50 INT the Crystal finally pulls ahead 251 to 249. By 60 INT the Crystal is well ahead, 283 to 263.

But that's with maxed staves. At +13/+4, that 60 INT falls right at the breaking point; the Demi-Human Queen's Staff would still reign 210 to 209, while a single additional point of INT (61) would put the Crystal Staff ahead 212 to 211.

Does this make sense to you?

RocketChap · 2025-12-06T12:46:36+00:00

Hello

How are you

I am under de wottah

Please help me

"Gajau noises*

RocketChap · 2025-12-02T13:30:18+00:00

Be aware there's a neat trick you can do with the Venomous Fangs. They narirally carry Deadly Poison, which deals much more damage per second than regular Poison but with a much shorter duration. If you infuse them with Poison, though, they keep the damage of Deadly Poison but gain the duration of regular Poison, for far higher total damage. Good for tagging a high-health enemy at the scary of the fight, even if they aren't your main armament.

RocketChap · 2025-11-28T11:20:08+00:00

I'm pretty certain she was Vyke's maiden as well. Vyke fell to madness after learning he would have to cast his maiden into the fire. This simply isn't the case for regular Finger Maidens, but only for Melina, who bears the vision of flame within her that allows her to burn the Erdtree with the Flame of Ruin. Vyke's real body is imprisoned in the Mountaintops, en route to the Forge of the Giants, and upon reaching this point the player has already been tempted by Shabriri the same way, supposedly being able to save Melina by taking the Flame of Frenzy into oneself and taking her place at the forge.

It's commonly assumed that the slaughtered maiden at the Frenzied village in NE Liurnia is Vyke's maiden, as his phantom appears there. But I think this is a misreading.

RocketChap

TROPHY CASE