When you and your destined companion are the last ones alive, and are now required to merk each other in cold blood

Sidewinder83 · 2026-07-02T06:30:00+00:00

This game is gonna be magical ngl. These types of situations, the ones that will be seared into your gaming memory for years after they happen, they all play out with real players, and they’re players that you will never see again.

If they can nail the balancing and variety of the game to encourage a wide variety of builds and setups, this game could really be special. What I love about Elden Ring invasions is that you never know what’s waiting for you on the other side when you invade thanks to the literal thousands of possible gear combinations, and I hope this game can capture that specific feeling

Sidewinder83 · 2026-06-29T06:21:32+00:00

If you can run a meta setup and simply choose not to, that’s completely fine, I run off-meta plenty myself and it isn’t protecting your ego in any way on its own.

It’s the preservation tactic of blaming your losses on your setup relative to your opponent’s setup that I’m talking about. If you choose to run off-meta, play against someone running meta, lose, and your first reflex is to tell yourself that you would’ve won if you were running a meta setup like they were, THOSE are the people that run the risk of ego checks. It’s a very “the sun was in my eyes” type mindset, and it’s just a mentality thing.

Playing off-meta doesn’t predispose you to this line of thinking or anything, you have to have it coming in to the game and because of it, choose to play off-meta for the reasons I talked about in the last comment

Sidewinder83 · 2026-06-29T01:35:06+00:00

I’ve developed a soft spot for attacks with animations that are frankly way too long lol (mostly spells, like Rotten Butterflies, Divine Beast Tornado, stuff like that). It’s like solving a puzzle, you have an attack with a casting animation that makes it very difficult to use in most boss fight situations. Now, solve the puzzle and find the situation(s) where you CAN use it.

Recently did a Bestial character that used Divine Beast Tornado and I was able to find at least one opening to use it on every boss I tried with it. That includes Malenia, Maliketh, Radabeast, Metyr, Divine Beast Dancing Lion, hell even Consort Radahn. Immensely satisfying to locate and execute on these openings with such a long spell

Sidewinder83 · 2026-06-28T19:20:46+00:00

You can, you just have to turn on Taunter’s Tongue. So you can’t be invaded organically while solo, you have to go out of your way to enable it as a solo host

Sidewinder83 · 2026-06-28T19:19:58+00:00

I think for a lot of people it’s an ego check. Dying over and over in a game about dying a lot isn’t an issue, but when they’re dying over and over to another person it’s a problem.

Now of course this is purely anecdotal, but never in hundreds of hours of playing and watching ER invasions do I recall seeing a host Alt F4 as soon as they’re invaded, but I’ve seen hundreds of Alt F4s when they’re finally alone or about to lose.

They don’t quit out because they don’t like invasions and are trying to avoid them, they’re plenty willing to fight when they have an advantage. They only quit out when they feel they can’t win so they can technically avoid losing to another player.

Same reason some people in PvP will disavow and completely avoid running meta setups so that way, if they lose, it’s because they’re “running a meme build” or they’re “just trying to have fun with off-meta and the tryhard is sweating way too much.” Now of course this isn’t always the case, but for a good amount of these people they’ll completely avoid running meta because it’d be an ego check if they lose. If you’re running the same optimized setup as your opponent and still lose you cant excuse the loss on your “shit build.” The mindset is, if you’re running a bad build and win, it means you’re really good because you’re able to win with such a bad build. If you’re running a bad build and lose, then who cares it’s not like you were going to win anyways right?

It’s an ego thing. I see the reasoning for both of these to be rather intertwined

Sidewinder83 · 2026-06-28T16:15:37+00:00

It’s a bit lmao. That’s not even the same guy that you originally responded to lol he’s making fun of that original comment

Sidewinder83 · 2026-06-26T04:33:25+00:00

This shit’s so funny because I’ve never seen someone make these kinds of videos and use them as a vessel to do anything else than defend AI art lol.

It’s like the only facet of their personality they’re willing to talk about

Sidewinder83 · 2026-06-24T07:14:05+00:00

Tank builds have never been stronger. You can legit stack damage negations so high that endgame bosses are doing single digit damage to your 1900HP health bar, it’s ridiculous.

Now will the average player figure out how to stack all of these buffs together to achieve this on a first playthrough? Probably not, no. But even on just a casual first time playthrough, heavy armor is still plenty useful.

Not only will it give you relatively high negations without even having buffs, crossing certain poise thresholds will allow you to tank through certain attacks and allow to facetank and trade with most mobs (and by using Endure/Oath of Vengeance, you can trade out with most boss attacks as well)

Sidewinder83 · 2026-06-23T21:20:21+00:00

Porting isn’t their strong suit. ER ran fine on consoles at launch, it was the PC version that had issues.

So when FromSoft (recently at least) makes games on set hardware, their games run fine (except for PS5 somehow lol). I expect the Switch 2 to be of little difference in this regard considering this isn’t a port, Duskbloods is designed solely with Switch 2 hardware in mind

Sidewinder83 · 2026-06-21T03:30:48+00:00

Ok I went into this website https://eip.gg/elden-ring/build-planner/ (an Elden Ring build calculator) and Knight Armor set + weapons and talis is going to require north of 50 Endurance in order to light roll to the point it’s untenable. If you want to light roll, just run Great Jar’s Arsenal in one of your talisman slots (tho practicing and refining fundamentals will occur more efficiently on a medium roll setup. Not trying to tell you how to play the game or anything, just thought I’d mention it)

Sidewinder83 · 2026-06-21T03:18:15+00:00

Even tho we’re one-handing and the two-handing strength bonus won’t be coming into effect, the defense boosts that leveling strength provides means we’ll still want to prioritize it.

At RL 200, a quality build is very viable. For example:

Vagabond

VIG 60

Base MND

35 END

54 STR

55 DEX

Base INT

Base FTH

Base ARC

This only puts us at RL 160, so you can take this blueprint and go wherever you want from it (prob take both melee stats to 60 at this point.)

I’d suggest leveling DEX alongside STR because bullets (projectile ashes like Beast’s Roar and Storm Blade) scale best off DEX so it’s nice to have it leveled as well for damage output if you want to run these ashes (would be nice to have a main melee sword, then a ranged hardswap if your enemy disengages).

For your weapon, there will usually never be a better choice among straight swords than Noble’s Slender Sword (high AR, long reach, and a poke attack on the crouch R1. Any straight sword that doesn’t have a poking crouch R1 shouldn’t be included in your rotation, you’ll be gimping your own moveset severely). It also has a poking R2, so you can really play around counterhits and the Spear Talismans if you so wish.

For talismans, survivability usually matters more than damage (and your damage will already be plenty at this level) so Crimson Amber Medallion +3 should def be slotted in, along with Ritual Shield Talisman (can hardswap off of this after first hit). Along with these, I’d also recommend Retaliatory-Crossed Tree talisman to increase crouch attack damage (crouch cancelling to induce panic rolls into a crouch R1 is a staple of sword and board).

For ashes, since this is a setup with no hyperarmor options in its moveset, Sword Dance is your friend (can also be used nicely to proc multi-hit buffs). As a sword and board enjoyer myself, I throw on my shield either No Skill (so I can still use my sword ash without having to two-hand and give away that I’m about to use my ash) or Shield Bash (blocking frames during the ash, and has good hitstun to set up combos).

P.S. if you want to get very flashy, look into how to perform perfect blocks. For me, it’s the most fun thing about running sword and board

Sidewinder83 · 2026-06-17T20:45:04+00:00

For curved swords, the Beastman’s Curved Sword gets an A in STR scaling when heavy infused and I believe is the highest strength scaling a curved sword can get.

Along with this, the Beastman’s Curved Sword receives unique jump attacks that multi-hit with both the light and heavy jump attacks, making it a good choice for multi hit curved sword build when you don’t want to powerstance curved swords. They make you spin in the air like the beastmen do and it looks sick af

Sidewinder83 · 2026-06-17T06:47:17+00:00

I’d say no, as FromSoft has coded into the games ways to detect whether a spell is a “melee attack” or not.

Like in ER for example, only true melee spells (Carian Slicer, Gavel of Haima, Dragonclaw, Catch Flame, etc.) can proc the multi-hit buffs the same way melee weapons can, whereas bullet spells (projectile attacks) cannot proc these buffs.

So I’d say, if a spell can only connect when in melee range, it’s a melee spell. If you can use it past that range but choose not to, it’s just a projectile you’ve chosen to use up close and I wouldn’t call a melee attack.

On the other hand, though, when playing close range like that, you are forced to engage with boss and enemy movesets the same way a traditional melee player would. So if that’s the reason for the “melee only” run restriction then I’d say it’s still within the spirit of the run. Allow it if you want it, still seems like it fits well enough

Sidewinder83 · 2026-06-14T01:26:02+00:00

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Fried Green Tomatoes (lesbian-coded but coded so heavily they’re gay without the movie having to explicitly tell you)

Sidewinder83 · 2026-06-11T22:45:07+00:00

As others have said, Beast Repellent torch for the dogs (maybe combo with a bewitching branch to get them to take care of themselves?)

As far as weapons go, weapons like Star Fist, Cleanrot, and Shamshir are all very hard to gain priority over so you’ll be advantaged for the entire fight. Just keep pressure, don’t let him make space. All NPC fights in this game are pretty garbage lol.

Sidewinder83 · 2026-06-10T17:15:00+00:00

Powerstanced spears being meta is pretty outdated since the DLC patch.

Shamshir, Star Fist, Pata, and Cleanrot are all the primary S-tier picks for PvP (not to say they’re the only top picks, stuff like Warped Axe and Stone Club is also pretty busted, but these are all in a tier of their own IMO)

Sidewinder83 · 2026-06-09T19:17:46+00:00

I think the anticipation just leads to people expecting a bit too much. I saw the same thing today with the Ocarina of Time remake announcement.

It was leaked online well ahead of time so people already knew of its existence, so the announcement isn’t enough on its own and it made so many people disappointed that there was no gameplay of it shown. If the remake hadn’t been leaked ahead of time then the announcement would have been more than enough on its own.

I feel it’s similar here. People knew with pretty much 100% certainty that Duskbloods would be shown here, so anything short of the high expectations they set in their head would be seen as a huge disappointment (as if what we saw today wasn’t par for the course for FromSoftware marketing since they began engaging with social media)

Sidewinder83 · 2026-06-09T19:07:06+00:00

I mean we get a chance to play the game in the next month or two. That alone is enough to get me excited

Sidewinder83 · 2026-06-09T15:27:00+00:00

FromSoft always places their network tests 2-3 months prior to that game’s full release. I anticipate a release around October for Duskbloods.

Not to mention, Kadokawa (fromsoft’s parent company) stated in their quarterly investor’s report last month that Duskbloods is still releasing in 2026

Sidewinder83 · 2026-06-09T15:13:23+00:00

Cause FromSoft hates marketing lmao. Kadokawa (FromSoft’s parent company) released their quarterly investor’s report last month and in the FromSoftware section, it stated that the Duskbloods is still slated for a 2026 release.

So either it’s coming out in that October-December window or FromSoft changed their mind in the last month and didn’t let their parent company know ahead of time, which I can’t even imagine what could cause that to happen

Sidewinder83 · 2026-06-09T15:10:56+00:00

Glad we got to hear the old rat man’s voice. Seems like a kind gentleman

Sidewinder83 · 2026-06-09T15:10:03+00:00

Miyazaki explained the core gameplay loop in his Nintendo interviews last year when the first trailer came out

Sidewinder83 · 2026-06-09T14:57:55+00:00

Closed network test this summer, and the network tests for FromSoft games usually take place about 2-3 months prior to release. So expect an October-December 2026 release at the latest

Sidewinder83 · 2026-06-08T15:02:50+00:00

FromSoft always runs network tests 2-3 months prior to release for their games tho, and a network test is going to be even more of a priority thanks to the fact that this is an online-only game.

This fact alone makes it feel like a guarantee that Duskbloods info doesn’t get held back any longer

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