I cant remember who said it upthread so i’ll paraphrase:
“You block with your shield and hit heavy attack immediatly.”
(FACEPALLLLM)
Im level 47. I put this discovery akin to those YT videos that say “10 games you handicapped yourself in”. ARE YOU SHITTING ME?? I knew about guard block but thought it was just a normal attack.
I didn’t know the follow up was a heavy attack (That is much faster then a normally trying it.)
This whole fucking time…I’m even wearing the charge attack medallion. This whole fucking time I could have been breaking guard, and causing stagger…etc…fuck me.
Probably the best thing you can say about special attacks, breaking guard, backstabs, etc, is that they have an obvious sound and an animation with i-frames, so if there’s no KACHINGTHUMP! booming through the speakers then you’re not doing it right. One thing I struggled with for a long time was getting a critical attack on a stance broken enemy. I eventually realised that you have to push right up against the front of the enemy (on large enemies such as dragons there’s a glowing/sparkling spot to show the correct place), pause very briefly so that any movement animation has finished, then hit the light attack button.
Ok, just dropping back in to say that, without a doubt, the Hero Grave dungeons are the laziest, lamest level design gimmick I think I’ve ever seen. They actually feel like placeholders or something that were supposed to be replaced with actual levels but were accidentally left in the game. The indestructible, 1 hit kill chariots are so lazy and frustrating. I don’t believe for a second that anyone was able to beat any of them on their first visit without cheating to watch a video ahead of time. Run away from chariot and jump over blind ledge hoping to see a balcony or something is shockingly terrible.
I didnt have to watch a video for the chariots…but that undulating, flailing tree worm thingie with a billion arms??..yeah fuck that thing. I doubt I’ll try him again since I have to get past all the chariot shit.
The hero grave dungeons are awful. I did the first one (i.e., the one closest to where you start) and followed a walkthrough to destroy the chariot but still couldn’t be bothered to do the others. As soon as I saw those tracks again, I just noped right on out. No part of that was fun.
There’s a spot where you can climb up and around and eventually be overlooking the track. There’s three large pots hanging over it. Hit one with an arrow (so three tries) to drop it onto the chariot which will (permanently) destroy it and you get some bow as a reward.
You know when you’re going down the track and there’s a spot where it narrows? Hug the right wall and drop into the void rather than running on the track. You’ll land on a ledge and start working your way through the tunnels from there to the chariot-shootin’ spot. There’s a number of those stupid imps and stuff so stay sharp.
Finally beat General Radan! What a strange battle. The music and setting are absolutely epic but I was only able to beat him by riding around the arena for 20 min resummoning all the NPCS who chipped away at his health so it was anticlimactic. The catacombs right after him are pretty out of control too. I’m a little sad that the content is getting so difficult that I just sprint past everything to grab items versus fighting. I’m LVL 56 and have beaten Margit, Godrick, Radan and Rennala.
Ok, I went back before your post and had a look around but didn’t see anything. I’ll try again. I got into an unexpected boss fight when I went back there. A Misbegotten Warrior and a Crucible Knight.
Way farthest north point of that area, near the water. It’s a carved door into the cliff which is small and about the same color so it doesn’t stand out.
Know what else is terrible? Haligtree. Since I won, I’ve been dinking around with an Easy mode mod to see the stuff I missed/skipped (I’ll likely never do another run to that extent) and that place is a stupid pain in the ass even with the mod.
The All remembrance Bosses run is currently an hour and a half, and that is with wrongwarp glitches.
So completely glitchless, IDK - I am sure some crazy time will be set for a vanilla run, but that doesn’t sound like the sort of thing that really engages these guys. All the glitch tech is part of the creativity that drives speedrunning.
