Over the years, FromSoftware has become infamous for its challenging, unforgiving, and hard-to-master games. Indeed, from Dark Souls to Elden Ring, each adventure offers a new and unique test for players to overcome. However, this difficulty is often overstated, and, with the right know-how, players can become masters of these worlds.
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Elden Ring is no different; with an understanding of the game’s systems and the weaknesses many enemies have, the journey to becoming Elden Lord can be a much smoother road. Be it using the consumables the game provides or studying the game’s hidden mechanics; there are plenty of tips to help improve the combat experience in this massive RPG.
Updated Feb 2, 2024 by Erik Petrovich: There are a lot of things players can do when considering how to get better at Elden Ring. There are of course the basics, like learning I-Frames and how to manage Stamina correctly, but then there are some strategies that are more specific to the FromSoftware formula. In Elden Ring, players can equip a huge number of weapons, and among these weapons are dozens and dozens of animations – because hitboxes are so precise in Elden Ring, the animation of your weapon can impact how effective it is in combat. This concept also applies to enemies – just about every boss or enemy in the game has a moveset that you can learn, and knowing is half the battle. This guide to combat tips Elden Ring doesn't necessarily tell you has been updated to elaborate on these two methods to get better at Elden Ring.
14 Learn Your Own Weapon's Attack Animations & Hitboxes...
Arguably the best way to get better at Elden Ring combat is to learn your own weapons' movesets and animation patterns. Knowing how to use your weapon effectively is key to adapting to different combat situations. For example, facing down one enemy is perfect for a spear that only attacks forwards, but it will have a really hard time taking down a group of enemies, even if they're weak.
Whenever you equip a new weapon, swing it around a few times, and see what its animation patterns are like. The hitboxes in Elden Ring are really precise, so knowing where your weapon can hit with its various attacks (light, heavy, dashing, crouching, etc) can give you the upper edge.
13 ... And Learn Difficult Boss & Enemy Movesets, Too
The most frustrating thing in Elden Ring is how difficult some of its bosses can be. Even its most difficult enemies offer players openings to attack, though – even Malenia. When facing down a boss, or an enemy, who is taking you to town over and over again, instead of bashing your head against it, try to learn how it moves and its attack patterns.
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For example, Godrick will almost always do his jumping attack if you stand close to him when he swings his axe around. He rolls towards the player, jumps up, and does a very-easy-to-dodge downward slam. For a few seconds afterward, players can get a few easy hits in.
Every enemy, and every boss, in Elden Ring has exploitable moves and behaviors. If something is frustrating you, spend some time to learn how to counter it properly – or just go level up for a while and come back to it.
12 Try And Separate Mobs For Easier Fights
Any Soulsborne veteran will attest to the fact that trying to fight multiple enemies at once is pretty much akin to a death sentence, with enemies surrounding the player and mobbing them incessantly until they're down and out for the count. So, in the event that players need to fight more than one enemy at once, it's important to know exactly how to manage such an issue.
Players should ideally try and aggro solitary enemies to separate them from a group and take them out with ease. This limits the number of foes that try to attack the player at once and makes these encounters far more manageable. While higher-level players will blast through these encounters without so much as a second thought, players who are starting out will alleviate a ton of their frustration if they just manage to separate these massive groups and take them on one by one.
11 No Matter What, Avoid Button Mashing
Button mashing is a tactic that many people might start employing in Elden Ring when combat gets too hectic. This is easily the worst strategy that anyone can employ in the game for obvious reasons — enemies who stop getting staggered after the first few hits will easily interrupt the player and get them trapped in a death-dealing combo of their own.
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At these moments, players should know better than to just button mash without a care in the world. Everything from attacking to dodging needs to be carried out with utmost precision to survive the many tough encounters in this game, and button mashing is pretty much asking for a quick game over.
10 Stamina Management Is Very Important
A player's stamina governs how many moves, blocks, dodges, and everything else along the same lines they can pull off. Having a high stamina helps curb a lot of management in this area, but players who are just getting into the game early on will find this to be a pretty substantial challenge indeed.
This is why it's important to keep an eye on their stamina at all times. Getting greedy with hits means that players will have a slight delay while dodging, and running out of stamina while blocking will lead to the player being very vulnerable as well.
9 Take Advantage Of I-Frames
An ever-present feature in FromSoftware’s Soulslike games, I-frames can be somewhat hard to define, despite being crucial to success in combat. Ultimately, I-frames represent the period of invincibility players have while rolling.
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Every enemy attack in Elden Ring will have a specific moment when players should roll; if timed correctly, players will use I-frames to roll through attacks unscathed. Timing can be tough, with attacks usually requiring players to dodge right at the last second, but with practice, players will succeed.
8 Do Not Panic Roll
Along the same lines as I-frames, panic rolling is something that will severely damage a player's chances of success in Elden Ring’s combat. Most enemies in this game are designed to have extremely delayed attacks, meaning if a player rolls too early out of panic, they will almost always get hit.
To avoid this, study an enemy's attack patterns, and roll at the last second before their attack animation lands. This tip will serve players against a number of bosses, especially humanoid ones that swing their weapons extremely late.
7 Pots, Pots, Pots
A severely underused mechanic in Elden Ring is the use of throwable pots. Created by mixing crafting materials and the Ritual Pots located throughout the Lands Between, these pots, of which players can have ten at once, are immensely useful.
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Each pot will do a different type of damage to an enemy, from Frost to Holy. Bosses such as Malenia, Blade of Miquella fall quickly when faced with a stack of freezing pots. Indeed, if players time their throws correctly, these items can be crucial in felling some of the game’s most challenging foes.
6 Use Status Effects
Enemies in Elden Ring all have their own weaknesses. Each is especially weak to a certain damage type, and once this type is discovered, combat can become much easier. Specifically, players can apply these damage types to their weapons with consumable items, or use weapons with a damage type baked in.
Bleed and Frost are especially powerful in Elden Ring, with enemies crumbling when faced with a blood loss build. To use these damage types, apply greases to weapons. These greases can be found in the world or crafted by the player.
5 Ashes Of War
Weapon Arts were an interesting experiment in Dark Souls 3; however, in Elden Ring, they are absolutely vital to the combat experience. Ranging from shooting a stream of glintstone magic from a blade to slamming the tarnished’s butt into the ground for massive damage, using these is a game-changer.
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Activated by using the left trigger, a weapon's ash of war will be indicated in a small bar of text above the player's items and can be altered by blacksmiths. Some weapons allow the player to change Weapon Arts, while other, rarer weapons have unique abilities that make them especially potent.
4 Utilize Torrent
Elden Ring features a new mechanic that has not been present in previous FromSoftware games. That being, the player's trusty steed, Torrent. While this mount is mostly used for traversal, this loyal horse is also key in a number of combat encounters.
Torrent is vital when fighting enemies such as dragons and Erdtree Avatars; he allows players to quickly strike enemies before exiting the situation at speed. Indeed, without Torrent, the game's many dragon fights become exponentially harder, and while he isn't available at all times, he is certainly a useful tool.
3 Spacing Is Vital
Enemies in Elden Ring can be deceptive, players think they are far enough away, and then they end up being squished by an oversized hammer. To avoid these unfortunate events, always pay careful attention to spacing. Specifically, make sure the distance from enemies is correct.
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This works in two ways, it is important to be far enough away from undodgeable attacks of course, but it is also key to be the right distance when dealing damage. There is nothing worse than swinging at an opponent to miss and be greeted with the "You Died" screen. Be wary when approaching enemies and work out how far their attacks reach.
2 Mix Up Your Approach
It is tempting to stick with one idea of combat in Elden Ring, be that the use of giant greatswords or a quick and tricky Dexterity build. However, for success in combat, it is important for players to mix up their approach. Many enemies in this game become notably harder if players refuse to use ranged attacks and vice versa.
Perhaps drop some points into Intelligence, Faith, or Arcane just so there is an option to fall back on should melee not do the job.
1 Push For Staggers
Staggering bosses have always been an aspect of FromSoftware’s games, but in Elden Ring, they are more important than ever. Both bosses and enemies are extremely weak to stagger build-up. Once an enemy's stagger meter is full, they will fall to the ground and allow players to deal huge damage with a critical hit.
Jumping attacks, heavy attacks, and Ashes of War are vital in building up an enemy's stagger meter; use them throughout combat in order to gain a huge advantage over the game’s enemies.
Elden Ring
- Platform(s)
- PS5 , Xbox One , PS4 , Xbox Series X , Xbox Series S , PC
- Released
- February 25, 2022
- Developer(s)
- From Software
- ESRB
- M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Language, Suggestive Themes, Violence
