WHY SO HEAVY!! Elden Ring weapons and combat analysis | Pop-culture weapons analysed



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Elden Ring’s weapons and combat animations get SO MUCH right and SO MUCH wrong! Let’s great it all down #PopcultureWeaponsAnalysed

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47 thoughts on “WHY SO HEAVY!! Elden Ring weapons and combat analysis | Pop-culture weapons analysed”

  1. Nilfgard ???
    shield meta ………. you need a dagger with that, poison resistance and hydra attack . ^^^ (it's an anime reff)
    i don't think it's normal to have the string clip thru your hips ^^ it's legolas style ^^
    crossy is realy a stop gap until you get your hands on a revy on your way to AK

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  2. One thing that I think would be cool is an animated weapons proficiency change over the course of the game. So you start with your basic sword or whatever, and you are rusty, over-swinging, telegraphing etc. Then you get better and your attacks are pure utility, no waste, no flair. Then you get even better and you can add flourishes and style to your attacks.

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  3. On the "weapon categories" topic, the big thing with weapon categories is that they determine what Ashes of War you can apply to a weapon. Thus, you can't try to stab yourself with a club, etc.

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  4. For the Uchigatana there's 2 possible theories:

    1: As you stated, FromSoft is a japanese studio, thus they may have had better access to japanese sources
    2: If you think about the game they released before Elden Ring: That was Sekiro. A game set in feudal japan where these types of sword are pretty much omnipresent, in various variations, including the one used by the player and various different Katans, Nodachis and Tachis used by the enemies and bosses. This means that FromSoft may have spent a lot of time researching japanese swords and swordsmanship in particular for that game, which would lead to them having better expertise compared to their Soulsborne series which have always featured a significant amount of complete fantasy weapons and large selection of weapon types as a whole.

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  5. lol not gonna lie at first i was like. how did shad get ahold of my character? man our characters look so similar lol
    ps the spears and rapiers aka thrusting weapons can be used while holding a shield in block which gives them all a massive plus from me

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  6. the weapon categories are that way because of "Ashes of war" basically spell or special moves you can put on a weapon wich is why some are in the same class but clearly diffrent sizes.
    its suppost to make it easier for the player to understand what Ash they can put on thier class without listing every weapon by itself.
    basically choosing umbrella terms that don't always fit then confusing the player with dozens of types of swords.

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  7. Kind of funny how FromSoft actually take two-hands-thing into account in a very specific way: Two-handing a weapon actually doubles your effective strength stat, thus increasing the damage dealt through scaling and also allowing you to wield weapons that you don't meet the strength requirements for. A pity that they don't consistently have two-handed movesets that really reflect the fact that you'd have more control with two hands.

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  8. Would love to see some reviews on the more fantasy focused, or wacky, weapons. Would be interesting to hear your insight into their design.

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  9. Bow catagory naming is not bad though, since they call it lightbows (as in lighter pound bows) and not just short bows, would be cool if they had short war bows though.

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  10. There actually ARE some "Greatswords" in Elden Ring that have really cool and closely accurate animations. As far as I know, there are two of them (so far (I'm still not done with the game)); there's the "Knight's Greatsword" and the "Banished Knight's Greatsword", both of which drop from their respective namesakes. You can find Banished Knights in Godrick's castle and you can find a couple knights to farm from in Liurnia before the lift to the Altus Plateau. Give em a try, I promise you'll like em.

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  11. I feel like the hollowslayer greatsword animations (from DS3) would be more like what Shad would like to see.

    But damn, that shield and spear build is actually pretty badass. Standing toe to toe with those giant bosses and just not giving a fuck lol

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  12. This is what i liked the most in Bloodborne, we had fewer weapons, but each one was completely unique, with their own animations, combos and strongpoints, instead of 3 pages of the same swords with different skins and slightly different stats, that would have been great here, having a little bit less weapons but each one having more care put into them

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  13. Adding a goat's leg might improve the realism of the crossbows, though, only slightly. I'm sure someone out there has practiced enough with one to load lighter crossbows that fast. May not be perfect, but a step in the right direction imo

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  14. One thing that does really drive me nuts about crossbows in this game (and Dark Souls as well) is when they use stamina. Because they use stamina not for reloading (where all of the effort should be) but for the shot. Somehow pulling several hundred pounds of drawweight back is apparently less exhausting than just squeezing a trigger with your hand. Makes you wonder what FromSoft would do with an actual gun…

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  15. Come on Shad, if your opponents consisted of massive dragons, huge hounds, giants and other oversized beings you would probably be putting way more force behind your swings too.

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  16. I think the thing that most games (even ones trying for semi-real anims) don't quite get about light/quick vs heavy attacks, is that with most weapons a heavy attack usually isn't about creating a longer swing to build momentum, but is often more about planting or moving your BODY in such a way as to add your own weight to the weapon's momentum.

    If you're dancing around an opponent, fighting from the balls of your feet and swinging mainly from the shoulder/elbow/wrist, its quick and responsive, but you really only have the weapon's own momentum behind it, so its just not going to hit as hard. But when you plant your feet to get your hips and upper body rotation into it – or lunge into a strike with your entire upper torso – it's going to hit much harder because you weigh a LOT more than your sword does. Those attacks aren't generally slower though.

    Instead you're momentarily giving up some of your ability to evade. You can't as quickly abort that attack and change direction. You'll also tend to telegraph a bit more because a canny opponent will see you starting to commit your weight even before the swing starts in earnest.

    If an opponent manages to twist aside, deflect your blow, or juke back just out of arc and throw a quick light slash against your thigh or shoulder… well, you're probably not going to be able to avoid that now, because you've committed your actual body mass to this motion and you can't quickly check that. But your actual weapon? You should have just as much control over it as you would with most any other attack. You'll be relying heavily on your ability to parry a counterattack rather than just being able to step away from it.

    The Souls games do actually tend to show this body commitment to their heavy attacks! So good on them there. But then they also have you swinging as if the weapon weighs a metric ton, which is the weird part.

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  17. Knowing shad I never would have thought he’d say anything about something being too heavy, he’s always recommending the biggest beefiest weapons and equipment like someone should have a great sword, kite shield, war bow, stick, dagger, spear, and club, ngl I thought he’d say all of that would be light work

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  18. Hey Shad, I see you haven't really covered any of the so called "weapon arts". You can use those usually by holding down the left trigger while two-handing a weapon. I really reccomend checking out some of them. Most of them are far from being realistic but they are really fun. In case of the longswords your character actually assumes an almost-proper guard stance 😀

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  19. Elden Ring devs also think that japanese swords are light and elegant, while most european ones are made to like they weigh ten kilos and need to be handled like a sack of concrete. Just a perpetuation of a common misconception. So no, the devs shouldn't get any credit for that.

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  20. Yeah, the Zweihander has always been in the really big sword category in the Souls games. In Demon's Souls it was called the Greatsword and was in the Very Large Sword category, in Dark Souls 1-3 it was called the Zweihander and was in the Ultra Greatsword category. And in Elden Ring the Zwei is a Colossal Sword.

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  21. crossbows are a bitch to implement in games cause they do more damage than bows but reload slower but the slow reload wouldnt matter cause skilled gamers could 1 tap you like in call of duty the instant you enter their sight lines. even if its just objectively bad, anything that can get an instant kill at range with what looks like no skill to the victim is gonna make people pissed (however they added a magical nuclear missle so it doesnt really matter)

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  22. I think the biggest problem they struggle with is trying to have historical weapons with video-game aesthetics. If you look at Breath of the wild, for instance, there's exaggerated attacks, but the weapons aren't historical, and would need to be a lot different.

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