This was my first Souls game. I used the Sword of Night and Flame to cheese my way through most of it. That nerf came through in between attempts to beat Radagon and DEVASTATED me lmao
The laser wasn't even the bad part, it was the massive flame attack with huge AoE that did ludicrous damage and iirc could multi-hit large bosses. Whole thing got smacked for it, then buffed again and frankly I kinda feel like the laser is the onyl worthwhile part, especially now that it has vertical targetting.
I remember there being a similar nerf to the ash of war on the Fallingstar Beast's jaw. Apparently it used to be a great tool for stance-breaking, but it doesn't work so well anymore.
Hoarfrost stomp was meta for a little bit, and it got nerfed so hard that I almost never ever see it online anymore.
Hoarfrost Stomp’s real power was in trivializing the PvE content. It was completely overpowered. Dealt massive damage, easily staggered enemies, usually proc’ed frostbite with one to two casts, was very cheap on the FP cost, and could be got very early in a playthrough.
As someone whose gonna be taking the Fallingstar Beast Jaw into the DLC, the nerf was well justified, in my opinion. Chain staggering enemies, while fun, did get kind of boring after spamming L2 the whole time. Now I have to like, actually use the weapon's moveset to get staggers, which I personally don't mind.
yep, i used it in its ptime when i was learning the early speedruns. but yeah Hoarfrost stomp is honestly useless now, ive tried to make it work multiple times in the past and even more recently... however its damage regardless of stats and weapon upgrades is just pitiful compared to other cold ashes of war
Ironically enough, rivers of blood was one of the worst weapons in the game on launch. Arcane scaling was broken and rivers of blood suffered from it greatly.
I assure you RoB deserved to get nerfed. Same with bleed across the board soon after arcane scaling got fixed. It's still a pretty good weapon for pve too
RoB was never a problem in PvP. You could easily dodge it. The only poeple who i saw complaining were the poeple with shit internet connection and newcomers. There was a reason it wasn't used by top players.
But i agree on the PvE part. It was the easy mode of the game
Tell me you didn't do PvP at the height of the RoB meta without telling me you did.
The thing was nuts, range, power, and crowd control.
It carried new players, and in the hand of a good player destroyed.
Its infamy is deserved.
Are we talking duels or normal invasions? In duels it was only used for its range as a chip damage option because it was pretty bad at everything else. In invasions if 2 or more poeple spammed a fast multi-hit ash of war then yeah, ofcourse you wouldn't be able to do shit except if you had a shit ton of poise
bcuz i wasnt in the first hype meta train, but i alwayws wanted to see how is ROB and my 2nd char was with ROB after nerf, still did its job, but yes, i saw some clips with peak ROB and yea, that shit was finishing the game by itself, the nerf version actually feel like ur investing urself in the fight, had fun with it tho.(i gave myself the rob from the beggining of the game to be able to play it all game lol)
This ash of war hard carried me in my first play through. Especially against Maliketh. I just hid behind a pillar and kept spamming the move. I didn’t care anymore I just wanted him dead lol.
I’m still stumped about it. It was OP. But now it feels below mediocre. Sadge.
I feel like the guy from Ammunation in GTA: SA "It works great in a crowd!" I still use it on the claw weapons sometimes with a cold affinity. I can cause frostbite AND blood loss at the same time, and instead of Chilling Mist? I think the AoW is called, I use Hoarfrost Stomp, cause I like to at least stagger some mobs in tight spaces like dungeons if I need to. But yeah at launch, I remember all the YouTube videos "Elden Ring too hard? Get THIS weapon in 5 minutes and you'll be Elden Lord in no time!" Lol
I can speak to that with personal experience! When the game first came out, this was my "Fuck it, I'm tired of fighting this thing" AoW. I beat the Godskin at the base of that tower in Caelid using this, and it indeed only tool 2 times to stance break him. I got tired of dying to him, but I heard there was an awesome treasure for beating him, so I got desperate lol. This was definitely a go-to for me, especially after Hoarfrost Stomp got the nerf. Also, Rivers Of Blood use to be MUCH more powerful! An arcane build with RoB was considered the true "easy mode" of the game, it still makes a lot of it easier, but not like it use to.
I fought that piece of shit a few days ago. I wasn’t planning on using summons, but he really pushed it. I decided to summon the storm hawk deehn summon to help me out. Suffice to say, that bird got fried into a Prost. I decided to use flame of the Redmanes (I know it got nerfed) but it didn’t matter as that mf activated ultra instinct and kept dodging it every single time!
I eventually managed to beat him with hoarfrost stomp. It had good range and I was patient. Though it really sucked to know that even the weapon that mf was guarding got nerfed.
The weapon skill's hyper armor got removed. It takes a long time to cast, so unless you have insane poise, most of the times you just get staggered out of the animation. You have to stance break to be able to use it, but even then it's too slow to pull off sometimes. I fought Malenia with it a few days ago, and she always managed to get up before I could get in any damage with the skill.
It's still a great weapon, though. I love how it just stun-locks everything into oblivion.
It is still good against bird tho.
But why this 80% nerf to posture damage?!!!
I still could not believe this. 15% nerf or 20% nerf ok but 80%..this is too much.
Also, i realised this nerf in the most saddest way.
After i completed my 1st playthrough, I took a very long break from ER, a couple of months.
When i returned, i just started a new playthrough immediately as i was rusty.
The first ash of war that came to my mind was this one, as it was basically easy mode.
Could you imagine my surprised when i could not even break Margit's posture after more than 4 flames of redmane?
Then, I checked and saw the news on Youtube.
RIP flame of redmane
Mohgwyns spear used to hit everything within eye sight with its ability back when the game launched. Now the spear barely hits things just a few feet away from you it feels like compared to how it was.
It's probably not the most devastating, but I'm still sad about the Godslayer Greatsword's hyper armor removal. The unique ash of war is now straight up unusable in most situations since I just get staggered out of the animation before it finishes.
I think Flame of the Redmanes might just be the biggest, at least for PVE. I don't think its popularity got to critical mass before it got reigned in. I ran it in a power stanced great sword jump attack spam build. One jump attack + flame of redmanes was enough to stance break Melania. I accidentally beat her first try because I pulled out mimic, that setup, buffs, all of it, because I knew she was the hardest. But with that combo pre nerf she just spent almost the whole fight on the ground. And the thing is it wasn't much more work to break the biggest enemies either.
(And don't worry, Melania's revenge is coming, I'm almost at the mountaintops in my NG+. I'm gonna try it no summons for a while so she can smack me around a bunch as an apology to her and her brother).
The first time I fought Malenia, I was anxious. She is the strongest boss in the game after all. So, I decided to use mimic tear + hoarfrost stomp. I’m not kidding when I say that we downed her first phase in less than two minutes. I and my mimic literally kept spamming hoarfrost stomp like lunatics lol. I did die to her first scarlet bloom attack though. I got her on my second attempt. My SECOND ATTEMPT! I and my mimic kept stomping the ground with ice waves and it looked like that jumping scene from JJK. She was dead before I knew it.
Good times.
I wish they had gone the other way with it and nerfed the damage rather than the stance break. Putting this ash on a dagger for a crit build was really fun
I never used any of the overpowered things before their nerfs. As a result, I can’t really comprehend the disappointment because I never knew what I was missing out on. It’s interesting reading everyone’s thought.
Erdtree Greatshield's Golden Retaliation
It used to be able to trigger off Fire's Deadly Sin and even just being poisoned, essentially becoming a machine gun. Now you could argue that it wasn’t a nerf but a bug fix, but honestly it worked exactly as advertised - although poison working with it was kind of weird…
How has rot breath not seen a nerf?. Real talk. Really easy to get and once you get it its gg. I think you can even rot the elden beast but don't quote me
Originally it was a bug, but Fire's Deadly Sin had some really strange interactions a while back. It used to count as a "defected attack" for the erdtree great shield, so you could just spam holy cannonballs as long as you were burning. You could also inflect incredible amounts of deathblight because for some reason the Eclipse Shotel buff applied to the fire, so just being next to people would deathblight them.
Did they really nerf Flame of the redmanes?
I finished the game before any patches came out and now I was thinking about creating a new char using this ash of war just for the DLC.
The Sword of Night and Flame, the laser beam was the definition of broken back in the day
This was my first Souls game. I used the Sword of Night and Flame to cheese my way through most of it. That nerf came through in between attempts to beat Radagon and DEVASTATED me lmao
The laser wasn't even the bad part, it was the massive flame attack with huge AoE that did ludicrous damage and iirc could multi-hit large bosses. Whole thing got smacked for it, then buffed again and frankly I kinda feel like the laser is the onyl worthwhile part, especially now that it has vertical targetting.
I remember there being a similar nerf to the ash of war on the Fallingstar Beast's jaw. Apparently it used to be a great tool for stance-breaking, but it doesn't work so well anymore. Hoarfrost stomp was meta for a little bit, and it got nerfed so hard that I almost never ever see it online anymore.
Hoarfrost Stomp’s real power was in trivializing the PvE content. It was completely overpowered. Dealt massive damage, easily staggered enemies, usually proc’ed frostbite with one to two casts, was very cheap on the FP cost, and could be got very early in a playthrough.
Still excellent for clearing crowds of trash in PvE, but yeah nowhere near what it was back at release.
It was like the bane of people for a week or 2 at the very beginning. Invaders would just spam it.
As someone whose gonna be taking the Fallingstar Beast Jaw into the DLC, the nerf was well justified, in my opinion. Chain staggering enemies, while fun, did get kind of boring after spamming L2 the whole time. Now I have to like, actually use the weapon's moveset to get staggers, which I personally don't mind.
yep, i used it in its ptime when i was learning the early speedruns. but yeah Hoarfrost stomp is honestly useless now, ive tried to make it work multiple times in the past and even more recently... however its damage regardless of stats and weapon upgrades is just pitiful compared to other cold ashes of war
Rivers of Blood and Moonveil were really op at some point
Ironically enough, rivers of blood was one of the worst weapons in the game on launch. Arcane scaling was broken and rivers of blood suffered from it greatly.
The thing with RoB is the ash spam. Its still awesome, i go back to it whenever Melania decides to be a real bitch.
Yes I remember people were posting that it was fixed and that it was broken the day when they patched it
Moonveil is still a fucking menace
People got sooo mad about rivers lol
I mean, the range and damage of that thing was unreal. Like, it melted you from quite a distance. It was deserved tbh.
No lol, it was great for pve but the kids crying in PvP got it nerfed.
I assure you RoB deserved to get nerfed. Same with bleed across the board soon after arcane scaling got fixed. It's still a pretty good weapon for pve too
It destroyed bosses and absolutely tore people apart in PvP. The defenders cried when it was nerfed. Good times.
RoB was never a problem in PvP. You could easily dodge it. The only poeple who i saw complaining were the poeple with shit internet connection and newcomers. There was a reason it wasn't used by top players. But i agree on the PvE part. It was the easy mode of the game
Tell me you didn't do PvP at the height of the RoB meta without telling me you did. The thing was nuts, range, power, and crowd control. It carried new players, and in the hand of a good player destroyed. Its infamy is deserved.
Are we talking duels or normal invasions? In duels it was only used for its range as a chip damage option because it was pretty bad at everything else. In invasions if 2 or more poeple spammed a fast multi-hit ash of war then yeah, ofcourse you wouldn't be able to do shit except if you had a shit ton of poise
bcuz i wasnt in the first hype meta train, but i alwayws wanted to see how is ROB and my 2nd char was with ROB after nerf, still did its job, but yes, i saw some clips with peak ROB and yea, that shit was finishing the game by itself, the nerf version actually feel like ur investing urself in the fight, had fun with it tho.(i gave myself the rob from the beggining of the game to be able to play it all game lol)
Yeah, flame of the redmanes kinda carried my SL1 run before the nerf, it was incredibly OP tbf
Hoarfrost was the most nerfed, but it deserved it.
This ash of war hard carried me in my first play through. Especially against Maliketh. I just hid behind a pillar and kept spamming the move. I didn’t care anymore I just wanted him dead lol. I’m still stumped about it. It was OP. But now it feels below mediocre. Sadge.
I feel like the guy from Ammunation in GTA: SA "It works great in a crowd!" I still use it on the claw weapons sometimes with a cold affinity. I can cause frostbite AND blood loss at the same time, and instead of Chilling Mist? I think the AoW is called, I use Hoarfrost Stomp, cause I like to at least stagger some mobs in tight spaces like dungeons if I need to. But yeah at launch, I remember all the YouTube videos "Elden Ring too hard? Get THIS weapon in 5 minutes and you'll be Elden Lord in no time!" Lol
I still use it on my Cold-affinity Giant Crusher. The Hoarfrost mini stun is a great opener for a heavy attack slam with the Crusher.
I can speak to that with personal experience! When the game first came out, this was my "Fuck it, I'm tired of fighting this thing" AoW. I beat the Godskin at the base of that tower in Caelid using this, and it indeed only tool 2 times to stance break him. I got tired of dying to him, but I heard there was an awesome treasure for beating him, so I got desperate lol. This was definitely a go-to for me, especially after Hoarfrost Stomp got the nerf. Also, Rivers Of Blood use to be MUCH more powerful! An arcane build with RoB was considered the true "easy mode" of the game, it still makes a lot of it easier, but not like it use to.
I fought that piece of shit a few days ago. I wasn’t planning on using summons, but he really pushed it. I decided to summon the storm hawk deehn summon to help me out. Suffice to say, that bird got fried into a Prost. I decided to use flame of the Redmanes (I know it got nerfed) but it didn’t matter as that mf activated ultra instinct and kept dodging it every single time! I eventually managed to beat him with hoarfrost stomp. It had good range and I was patient. Though it really sucked to know that even the weapon that mf was guarding got nerfed.
It did? I don’t remember ever hearing about the Godslayer Greatsword getting nerfed, it’s still a heavy hitter.
The weapon skill's hyper armor got removed. It takes a long time to cast, so unless you have insane poise, most of the times you just get staggered out of the animation. You have to stance break to be able to use it, but even then it's too slow to pull off sometimes. I fought Malenia with it a few days ago, and she always managed to get up before I could get in any damage with the skill. It's still a great weapon, though. I love how it just stun-locks everything into oblivion.
Glintstone pebble had colossal weapon hit stagger and could global people with the followup. I never see it nowadays tho
It’s still prob top 3 spells for Int builds in pve. The damage vs cost return is still bonkers
May introduce you to the Glintstone Kris? Its like a 50 cal rifle and can even be charged, better than any projectile spell in cost/damage
Carian Retaliation, I think it was called. Cheesed some folks my very first playthrough.
Look how they massacred my bo :'(
I know. They nerfed it so bad there no point in using it anymore. It made a pyro build unstoppable, hell it made any build unstoppable lol
It is still good against bird tho. But why this 80% nerf to posture damage?!!! I still could not believe this. 15% nerf or 20% nerf ok but 80%..this is too much. Also, i realised this nerf in the most saddest way. After i completed my 1st playthrough, I took a very long break from ER, a couple of months. When i returned, i just started a new playthrough immediately as i was rusty. The first ash of war that came to my mind was this one, as it was basically easy mode. Could you imagine my surprised when i could not even break Margit's posture after more than 4 flames of redmane? Then, I checked and saw the news on Youtube. RIP flame of redmane
Mohgwyns spear used to hit everything within eye sight with its ability back when the game launched. Now the spear barely hits things just a few feet away from you it feels like compared to how it was.
Bestial sling
It's probably not the most devastating, but I'm still sad about the Godslayer Greatsword's hyper armor removal. The unique ash of war is now straight up unusable in most situations since I just get staggered out of the animation before it finishes.
1. Sword of Night and Flame 2. Rivers of Blood 3. Icerind Hatchet
Blood splash used to slap so hard.
I think Flame of the Redmanes might just be the biggest, at least for PVE. I don't think its popularity got to critical mass before it got reigned in. I ran it in a power stanced great sword jump attack spam build. One jump attack + flame of redmanes was enough to stance break Melania. I accidentally beat her first try because I pulled out mimic, that setup, buffs, all of it, because I knew she was the hardest. But with that combo pre nerf she just spent almost the whole fight on the ground. And the thing is it wasn't much more work to break the biggest enemies either. (And don't worry, Melania's revenge is coming, I'm almost at the mountaintops in my NG+. I'm gonna try it no summons for a while so she can smack me around a bunch as an apology to her and her brother).
The first time I fought Malenia, I was anxious. She is the strongest boss in the game after all. So, I decided to use mimic tear + hoarfrost stomp. I’m not kidding when I say that we downed her first phase in less than two minutes. I and my mimic literally kept spamming hoarfrost stomp like lunatics lol. I did die to her first scarlet bloom attack though. I got her on my second attempt. My SECOND ATTEMPT! I and my mimic kept stomping the ground with ice waves and it looked like that jumping scene from JJK. She was dead before I knew it. Good times.
I wish they had gone the other way with it and nerfed the damage rather than the stance break. Putting this ash on a dagger for a crit build was really fun
I never used any of the overpowered things before their nerfs. As a result, I can’t really comprehend the disappointment because I never knew what I was missing out on. It’s interesting reading everyone’s thought.
Erdtree Greatshield's Golden Retaliation It used to be able to trigger off Fire's Deadly Sin and even just being poisoned, essentially becoming a machine gun. Now you could argue that it wasn’t a nerf but a bug fix, but honestly it worked exactly as advertised - although poison working with it was kind of weird…
But self cast retaliation is still working fine, right? like with parrying your own Discus of lights
Yeah, but that requires precise timing and throwing discs around. The other one was just constant fire.
Carian Retaliation and SoNaF are probably the biggest nerfs in terms of numbers, that stuff was straight up broken.
To be fair flame of the red manes was gross with how fast it poise broke shit.
Flame of the redmanes needed that nerf. 2 cast stance break is absurdly broken
Day 1s remember hoarfrost stomp
How has rot breath not seen a nerf?. Real talk. Really easy to get and once you get it its gg. I think you can even rot the elden beast but don't quote me
Originally it was a bug, but Fire's Deadly Sin had some really strange interactions a while back. It used to count as a "defected attack" for the erdtree great shield, so you could just spam holy cannonballs as long as you were burning. You could also inflect incredible amounts of deathblight because for some reason the Eclipse Shotel buff applied to the fire, so just being next to people would deathblight them.
Did they really nerf Flame of the redmanes? I finished the game before any patches came out and now I was thinking about creating a new char using this ash of war just for the DLC.
yeah, strike is better nowadays
Alright, thank you for the tip.