Elden Ring isn’t a game that holds the player’s hand when they start it up. It gives players a simple set of instructions and the vague direction they’re supposed to travel, and lets gamers do their thing at their own pace without any real restrictions. This is great for immersion, but it leads to many players missing some of the more nuanced mechanics the game has to offer.
Exploring the world and unlocking the map is great, but exploring the possibilities for the Tarnished is just as interesting, and possibly even more useful in the long term. Knowing obscure mechanics can help win fights against other players, and can make the game much more fun.
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5 Buff Stacking
Better Than Leveling Up
- Use one buff from each category.
- A few buffs are better than none.
The game never explicitly tells the player, but it’s natural to assume that it’s possible to combine different buffs in the game. However, that assumption isn’t quite true. Only some buffs can be paired with others, meaning there’s a good chance that a new player will spend a lot of prep time overwriting their buffs.
There are five categories of buffs in the game: aura, body, weapon, regeneration, and unique. Generally, the Tarnished can only have one buff from each category (except for unique buffs, which can stack indefinitely with one another). Once players have a buffing routine established, the game’s difficulty will take a sharp downturn.
4 Counter Attacking
Pierce Through Opportunity
- Players can use piercing weapons to their advantage against enemies with long wind up attacks.
- Use the spear talisman to deal even more damage.
In addition to simple attacks, strong attacks, powerful weapon skills, and guard counters, there are counterattacks that the game doesn’t do a very good job of explaining. Whenever the player hits an enemy with a counter-attack, they deal more damage than they normally would. Add the damage boost from the 
Spear Talisman , and the result is a solid 45% increased damage output.
The damage from counterattacks stacks on top of any natural weakness an enemy has to piercing damage.
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There are two conditions for something to be considered a counter-attack. Firstly, the player has to use a weapon that deals piercing damage. Secondly, the Tarnished must attack an enemy while they are in the middle of an attack animation. The wind-up is considered an attack animation for this purpose. Any piercing attacks that hit in this duration will deal an extra 30% damage.
3 Feinting
Not Getting Hit is the Best Defense
- Players can abandon charged heavy attacks if they overextend themselves.
- Use this technique to confuse players in PvP who aren’t familiar with the mechanic.
A little-known mechanic that most of the player base doesn’t know about, or utilize, is feinting. On certain weapons in the game, such as thrusting swords, players can cancel the animation of their charged heavy attacks. Often, players can over commit to an attack without realizing that the enemy is charging up its own. This is the perfect solution for that.
Moreover, feinting adds yet another attack type to the player’s arsenal, widening the attacking possibilities, and confusing opponents in PvP. Since not a lot of people know about it, feints are very useful to catch other players off-guard.
2 Hyper Armor
Power Through the Pain
- Trade blows and stagger the enemy.
- Use heavy weapons for maximum hyper armor.
An important aspect of any build is the amount of hits the Tarnished can take before flinching. This is affected by the player’s total poise, calculated by combining the pose of all armor pieces that they are currently wearing. It can also be influenced by talismans like the 
Bull-Goat’s Talisman . However, there is another number that goes into the calculation before the game decides whether an attack should be interrupted or not.
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That number is the hyper armor that any given attack gives the player. Each attack that a player performs will give them a certain amount of hyper armor, additional poise on top of what their armor already gives them. This means that certain attacks will let players power through hits better than others and make trades more favorable for them, interrupting their enemy. Typically, larger weapons will have hyper armor with most attacks, while lighter ones will only have it with some of them. Charged attacks and some weapon skills, will have more hyper armor, making them the best option for trading damage with opponents in most cases.
1 I-Frames
Different Roads to Invincibility
- Use jumping I-frames to attack enemies when they do low sweeping attacks.
- Mount and dismount torrent for an easy way to dodge world boss attacks.
It is common knowledge that the reason dodges work is because of a mechanic known as I-frames, where the player becomes invincible for a few frames in the middle of the dodge. Fast rolls have more I-frames than Medium rolls, making dodging attacks easier. Similarly, heavy rolls have fewer I-frames than both Medium and Fast rolls, making it much harder to dodge attacks in an encumbered state.
Opening chests and doors, activating sites of grace, parrying, and performing ripostes also gives the player I-frames.
However, what many people don’t know is that there are other ways to achieve I-frames in Elden Ring. Mounting and dismounting Torrent while standing gives the player I-frames for a short duration. Jumping makes the player’s lower body immune, meaning it’s possible avoid many attacks in the game by simply performing a jumping attack. Additionally, the following weapon skills also grant I-frames:
Elden Ring
- Released
- February 25, 2022
- Multiplayer
- Online Co-Op , Online Multiplayer
- How Long To Beat
- 58 Hours
- Cross-Platform Play
- PS4 & PS5 and Xbox One & Xbox Series X|S
