Can I Beat Elden Ring with Only Thorn Sorceries?

[@Bushy]

Play Enlisted for FREE on PC, Xbox Series X|S and PS®5: enlisted.link/bushygamesenlisted Follow the link to download the game and get your exclusive bonus now. See you in battle!

[@timijkpro]

Ok

[@MattJDylan]

If I can give you an advice for the video production since you've been improving on that for a while, let a bit of a "breather" at the start of the video. A second/second and half of a background music before you start the voice-over (keeping the same music) can make a huge difference. The first impact now is a bit strange, it's almost some kind of jump-scare since you start talking immediately, when people are still focused on skipping the ads beforehand. On people that know the channel this does little effect, but it can be a detriment on retention of those who click on one of your vids for the first time. Anyway, just my 2 cents.

[@saurabh95mishra]

Please do a mohg spells only, maybe with nihil, loved all your runs btw

[@timijkpro]

@@saurabh95mishra sure

[@whywatt733]

Wonder if you've ever thought of doing a no-s melee run - no rolling, jumping or using skills like bloundhound step. Idea being the stereotypical fantasy knight who rejects all 'cowarding' and focuses on parrying, blocking or tanking to avoid dmg

[@Nu63]

This solved a game riddle for me: The Alberich set description says that he was a heretical mage that went mad from being ridiculed all the time by fellow members of the roundtable hold. I never got around to testing thorn spells, but now I know they were bad enough for people to laugh at.

[@alexandrevibo]

Thorn Spells are strong, but are made exclusively for arcane builds. Without Albinauric Staff the bleeding will not accumulate

[@nsk1911]

It hurts to see such a cool concept for a Sorcery class being so wasted

[@ChizFreak]

@@alexandrevibo say you have an arcane build, why the hell would you try to inflict bleed using these shitty slow sorceries instead of using any bleed weapon that scales with arcane which will yield better, safer, faster results? Thorn sorceries are very bad, no way you look at them

[@lebron73]

@@ChizFreak they're nice as AOE in invasions

[@noshua2326]

@@lebron73 if you’re doing invasions with an arcane build you are always gonna be better off using dragon breathe spells as an aoe

[@ritul510]

finally, a run that truly reflects bushy's play throughs, self harm

[@DustoVonSusto]

God tier comment

[@M12GProductions]

Does the Human Torch run not count?

[@largemonkey]

It also happens to reflect me irl

[@kanishksingh80]

Lmaaao

[@wesleywilcox8829]

@@M12GProductions ya I think it dose but it’s emotional damage not physical damage.

[@Deneb626]

It's so wild to me how all over the place spells in ER are. A spell with a long windup and self damage, but it's just so weak it's situational at best And then the starting spell "shoot glowy pebble" can trivialize fights by homing at range with good damage for barely any FP.

[@123123boobies]

Ya id say Night Comet is the most broken spell in the game. You literally just stand back and spam attack and no boss in the game will even attempt to dodge it. No self damage, fast attack animation and it homes. Thorn sorceries need a major buff

[@nathanjora7627]

In fairness thorns are the exception, same as bubble, most sorceries are fairly straightforward in balancing. Incantations to me are a bit more tricky since it seems like there are several spells you’d want to be under the same “etiquette” to make a coherent RP build (ER is still an RPG after all, that’s part of the stuff you need to account for) that is on par with sorceries in terms of investment, but are in completely different sections and can require wildly different stats.

[@anthonyfaiell3263]

Don't forget tera magica+kamehameha spam. Not only does it do MASSIVE amounts of damage. But also has pushback so you can just stand there spamming one button and watching giant enemies melt. . That said, I have always felt that fromsoft games implement difficulty into the gameplay itself. You can do a level 1 playthrough with just a torch if you want to play the game on "insane" difficulty. Or you can play full arcane faith rotten breath spam or intelligence tera magica+kamehameha spam if you want to play the game on "super easy" difficulty. The way you play the game and build your character dictates the difficulty of the game. This obviously results in some pvp related issues, but overall I think it's an interesting concept.

[@lukatosic09]

Honestly briars of sin is pretty solid for PvP and punishment is also useful for invasions by exploiting it's tracking bug when over a ledge

[@starcultiniser]

what situation is it better than any other spell?

[@glorytoukraine5524]

You know the run is nasty when you would rather do Godskin Duo than Renalla

[@jstar3382]

You can cheese duo. Rennala is harder to cheese

[@glorytoukraine5524]

@@jstar3382 you know the run is nasty when you have to cheese renalla

[@Ezekiel_Allium]

@@jstar3382 seriously though, its Renalla lmao, by far the easiest boss in the game excluding like, the mimic tear. Somethings up when you aren't able to do good damage to her. Frankly, from should use her as their baseline for balancing. Can this reasonably kill renalla? No? Buff it.

[@hughmongus6959]

Rennala just has so much magic resistance, most in the game

[@eg0zb]

@@Ezekiel_Allium Her second phase is kinda of a bitch tho, not the easiest at all by far imo

[@bilalahmed-bu7bi]

My fav part from the run was definitely Loretta spamming her attack 13 times in a row didnt think that was even possible and the flying marionette sniping him mid air

[@colorpg152]

so you like spell spamming i can do that too

[@Ezekiel_Allium]

I've had ghost Loretta do that to me before, I think the longest chain I ever counted was like 21 or something, its nuts

[@tylerlackey1175]

You're talking about elden ring bosses and you're surprised one would spam the same attacks a dozen times?

[@jimfrederick54]

I was tabbed out playing a game and I heard the same spell sound way too many times in a row and immediately went to check the comments lol

[@christopherperkins5925]

11:50 I think bushy may have discovered a new radahn cheese. Radahn was clearly nowhere near him to get hit by the thorns but bleed still proc’d. I think this happened because Leonard (Radahn’s horse) gets pushed underground as radahn goes into the air, Leonard gets positioned directly below the player so the game knows where to have radahn land. My theory is that the thorn spell radius reaches underground, which in any other scenario would be worthless, except right here giving the player an opportunity to do boss damage while the boss is unable to fight back

[@donutcobra3144]

I thought the same thing and I am definitely going to use this in my next play through

[@kingslimegaming5424]

I was searching for this comment

[@RiceKrispy563]

@@donutcobra3144 why that's such a specific and pretty worthless "cheese" to bleed him that would mean using that spell or another bleed weapon but that spell is shit and just using a normal bleed weapon would be a 1000x better so why use it

[@valentai_777]

@@RiceKrispy563 the whole fuckin point is to damage Radahn while he’s in the air💀 You can’t do that wit a normal weapon when he’s flying😭

[@RiceKrispy563]

@@valentai_777 why tho it would only be 200 damage with the spell and getting the bleed would be so fucking hard your better off just beating the shit out of him normally

[@RoosterW]

really sad that abberant sorceries didn't get much love, super cool idea for faith based sorceries, and being the only spells in the game that cause bleed (to my knowledge anyways), and having very cool designs with very nice animations, AND having interesting lore implications. quite unfortunate that there's only two spells, that are both super similar to each other and absolutely suck

[@jonathanw1106]

Swarm of flies causes way better bleed (its an incant)

[@gooseloose682]

@@jonathanw1106 his point was bleed "sorceries"

[@Nightmare-pj4fg]

Yeah, and you know that move the enemies do where they stick their staff into the ground and a line of thorns goes towards their opponent. Why can’t we have that!? It wouldn’t be overpowered or anything, like come on Mizayaki Nvm I am a fucking idiot. That IS briars of punishment XD

[@Purriah]

@@gooseloose682 no, he said “the only spells in the game that cause bleed (to my knowledge anyways)”

[@gooseloose682]

@@Purriah oh, yea my bad. I read it as sorceries lmao. But, you could make the argument that spells are not incantations. Ahh, it doesnt matter in the end :)

[@jedrzejkoszewski4342]

From Soft: lets make cool aoe spell that causes bleed. Also From Soft: How do we balance it? From Soft: Make it cost HP AND FP, make it cause bleed to you as well, make it slow as turtle to cast and even slower to recover from and make it do little damage through most of the gameplay.

[@NezumiTheMouse]

you have to build a dumb dex arcane build using the Albinauric Staff or dex faith build and grind 2 of the 2% drop rate staffs and its still slow and fairly weak

[@yungamare4750]

@@NezumiTheMouse The Albinauric staff use to increase the bleed buildup of the spell, and if you had the guilty staff in your left hand, the spell was actually great. It had decent dmg and would proc bleed in 2-3 hits. Then the staff got nerfed.

[@TheStraightestWhitest]

From Soft: But to counterbalance those weaknesses, we'll also give it only two inches worth of AOE.

[@mr.kittysavestheworld695]

It's the same issue with bad cards in Yugioh; anytime they have a mechanic that seems powerful, they make it so damn _slow_ that it becomes completely unusable, not understanding that making something slow in an inherently very fast game is always going to completely break it.

[@AcediaRex]

Coming back to this video a year later when the most overpowered spell in the DLC is a Thorn Sorcery is wild.

[@TheMetalheadWeeb]

Impenetrable Thorns

[@elizohs]

Coming back to this comment after the spell got nerfed😢

[@abhishekduggal.2076]

After watching elden ring for months i still find it funny that KZbinrs do crazy builds and Margit tells them to "put these foolish ambition to rest "

[@jackbobb2711]

34:14 has GOTTA be the best moment in the run

[@llukandane3337]

Bird: no

[@tacoman10]

11:54 Radahn's meteor attack tracks you through his horse, which stays just below the player underground. I think you hit it with the briars which is what triggered the bleed.

[@flyingsquirrel0387]

Completely understandable why, but I love how Bushy basically says “Rykard… yeah fuck that I’ll pass” and just kills everyone else.

[@fallen9997]

Margit: 17 attempts Godrick: 2 attempts Red Wolf: 8 attempts Radahn: 38 attempts Mimic Tear: 1 attempt Draconic Tree Sentinel: 18 attempts Goldfrey: 8 attempts Morgott: 7 attempts Fire Giant: 4 attempts Godskin Duo: 6 attempts Elemer of the Briar: 1 attempt Maliketh: 2 attempts Gideon: 1 attempt Ghost Loretta: 1 attempt Mini Mohg: 2 attempts Fia's Simps: 2 attempts Fortissax: 1 attempt Astel: 2 attempts Regal Ancestor: 1 attempt Rennala: 6 attempts Placidusax: 3 attempts Niall: 1 attempt (probably) Loretta: 2 attempts Malenia: 7 attempts Hoarah Loux: 2 attempts Big Mohg: 7 attempts Radagon/Elden Beast: 3 attempts

[@Palkia_Onslaught_Gal]

I mean it’s all about the speed of the bosses

[@hideous_taco_michael_zacki]

A saint you are!

[@KeDe1606]

How come that the f-ing Tree Sentinel has the second largest amount of deaths while the Godskins, Malenia and Hoarah Loux are on the lower side

[@lugundurymurdurur7607]

@@KeDe1606 they all have more damage windows.

[@fallen9997]

@@KeDe1606 welcome to challenge runs ahere Gideon usually can be the hardest boss.

[@obviouslykaleb7998]

36:56 there's a niche usage for Briars of punishment: it passes under environmental objects, while most spells get blocked by them

[@boostmags6165]

Bushy: “Is this punishable?” Every single time: no

[@takeachance5881]

This is really testing the understanding of boss windows since missing 1 cast is basically missing out on a lot of the blood buildup on top of it decaying even more.

[@gauravdevmurari6160]

At this point he can beat the game with anything that deals damage

[@kalmefaze]

"Can I beat elden ring without dealing damage " 😐

[@sowhat1073]

@@kalmefazeDidn't someone do a summons-only challenge?

[@Rattlehead62]

@@sowhat1073 yeah a few people have done that

[@jadadtv2934]

@@sowhat1073 yeah, iron pineapple

[@motorcycleman115]

as long as he has sleep pots for godskin duo

[@Never_heart]

For those curious, the 1.07 patch did significantly buff this spell type

[@Raccoonik]

It's still not all that great

[@tycheese5]

This run just got a LOT easier

[@joefamliyguy1551]

Lmfao

[@Sven-wu2ek]

Last week I managed to beat Malenia while level 1. While doing my runs I kept watching your video where every enemy is Malenia just for some semblance of learning her moves better. And eventually I did it with pure willpower and luck. Took about 70 tries.

[@antx_soulsborne_meat_rider]

Ggs i could never

[@mintegral1719]

Nice job! I did the same a while back, also purely through "willpower and luck". Took me over 1000 attempts. Was there some skill involved? Sure. But it was mostly stubbornness and waiting for good RNG, lol.

[@Tackitt]

70 is beastly. Took me 350ish.

[@wickermind6668]

10:33 Moongrum looking at the sorcerer and back like "Thought he had more vigor."

[@mimimalloc]

having not just self-damage but a BIG chunk of self-damage on EVERY stage of a spell with a 3-hit combo is really egregious. shit like blood blade doesn't work that way, you cut once and get as many uses as your blue bar allows without further health loss!

[@jakubpivovarnik8440]

30:53 Best moment of the run

[@makiharukawayt4042]

These Challenges must be so frustrating at times, but you still manage to pull through, keep up the good work, first channel for me to become a Member on.

[@jonaswest6993]

10:31 to 10:34 MoonGrub turning to the wizard who killed you like "Dude I had him, why'd you but in like that?"

[@TrekingTabris]

I hope a dev sees this and changes the bloodmagic tree. A whole DLC would be sweet.

[@yanisttc]

34:13 This is the very essence of Elden Ring

[@Jonniffer08]

New Bushy on a Friday night, what a treat! Can't wait for over an hour of agony!

[@redbone9553]

I like how for most mage build, Rennala is an end game boss.

[@FLareBlitz-rc8cu]

Not really, just grab rock sling or meteorite, and renalla gets absolutely melted

[@whispersonthewind2967]

​@FLareBlitz-rc8cu the keyword is *most*

[@hockeater]

@@whispersonthewind2967 MOST mages that are experienced enough to be doing something that can be called a build pick up rock sling and meteorite staff early game, because they're some of the most straightforward powerful options early on for powerful enemies, have high stagger, and continue to be relevant straight to the endgame because physical damage availability is a godsend. This isn't some obscure deep endgame shit. The game will happily throw you at those things from a Limgrave area literally visible from the first step.

[@thenootduck]

Most of these challenge runs are hard because you need to figure out how many blue flasks you can get away with... but the balancing act of figuring out how many blue AND red flasks you need?? Actual madness, I've only watched up to where you beat Godrick so far and it's still further than I'd have the patience for

[@BlurkFromUtterSpace]

While most other builds just have to look for a punish window, this build has to look for a punish keyhole.

[@topthog]

Imagine living in a world of magic, mastering the art of self sacrifice to summon thorns into your enemies, and then discovering that it would be more effective to smack your opponent with a stick until they bleed to death

[@LaxonPfc]

After all the suffering from this run you deserve to grab Impenetrable Thorns from DLC and destroy everything with it. Its the strongest spell in the game right now

[@kaiknight9761]

IMO I feel the thorn sorceries would be so much better if they only took health, which would also be an interesting twist on people’s strategy and make them much more playable

[@llukandane3337]

30:50 I have never seen Bushy’s dog The cuteness levels are OVERLOADING

[@StanleyG23]

Nice. Although, you would've had a way easier time if you used the Albinauric Staff alongside the Staff of the Guilty since it scales with Arcane (has S Arcane Scaling). It would increase the Hemorrhage (Bleed) build up from the Aberrant (Thorn) Sorceries. P.S. Good luck with Magma Sorceries only (whenever you decide to do that).

[@robbe3334]

for some reason when people do Thorn sorceries challenge runs they just forget that the albinauric staff is a thing. i've seen this on like 2 other thorn sorceries only challenge

[@StanleyG23]

@@robbe3334 I don't know if you've seen it, but Worn-outGamer4 also did a pretty good Thorn Sorcery only run.

[@robbe3334]

@@StanleyG23 pretty shure i've seen it

[@StanleyG23]

@@robbe3334 Okay.

[@bobvagana5443]

We actually discussed this on stream, i was the one that suggested using it, bushy decided that the lower sorcery scaling wasnt worth the extra bleed, especially on bosses that dont bleed in the first place. I do still think he should have given it a shot though

[@sephtis]

Margit wasn't being mean telling you to put those ambitions to rest, he was trying to save you the pain. The anti-air puppet, omg.

[@flockofbeans9153]

"Please stop running at me, you're scaring me" -Average Malenia fight

[@raizen1364]

its really funny that this video popped up in my feed now after the dlc gave us one of the most broken sorceries in the game and its a thorn sorcery

[@ruudur]

I love the kind of challenges that push you to try alternative routes

[@jakeatkinson1973]

Love your work man! First channel I've actually became a member on as it's the only one I feel deserves it ❤️

[@Aswdus]

“This is doing much better than I’d expect it to” bushy then proceeds to die

[@stockimageofaburglarwithag2284]

10:32 Moongrum is like: ''Damn, he dead already?!''

[@ever-changingbeing]

Okay. This was freaking impressive and scary at the same time. It was almost like Malenia got adapted to your build and knew how to counter it.

[@Jhunt590]

Not long after this run, Fromsoft saw this and said, yeah our bad. They just buffed both of these spell. A lot. Haha

[@travisumbra1974]

The Briar spell had 1 legit use before the patches, when spell swap quick cast was still a thing you could instantly cast this spell if somone got to close when you were casting somthing else. But sadly this spell is now firmly in the useless category.

[@Ezekiel_Allium]

From "let's patch out the coolest mechanic we've ever put in a game" software

[@AnAverageGoblin]

@@Ezekiel_Allium It was a glitch you knob.

[@dhammond249]

Wow those spells are painful. The recovery time after 3 thorns is insane, it's crazy you've gotta wait that long after an already slow/weak/self-harming spell

[@zoidsfan12]

At first this was a horrific challenge but it got significantly better as you got things to boost your damage. Just finished reinstalling the game so that I can give it another run through. This and the one shots only video were my motivation. Thanks for reassuring me that there is still a ton to do in this game and assuring me that these bosses can be mastered like any other in the series. I just haven't seen anyone do these bosses so cleanly until finding your channel.

[@Otohoto]

i love this doggo at 30:50 , looks like he felt your pain "lets go on a walk bro, it'll lift your mood trust me"

[@christianchampagne2281]

You could've put the spinning weapon ash of war on the staff. It's surprisingly effective at getting bleeds to proc

[@lunarmoon3060]

Finally, after finishing bushy’s latest stream, I can consume more of his content with this video. Amazing skill as always bush, can’t wait to see the condensed version of the next run.

[@drdelete]

Really seems like you had a tough day at the office with this challenge run 😅 Thanks for the upload.

[@jasterthewolf6392]

I would've loved to see the Thorns sorceries get more love... even if they left a couple seconds of Bloodflame behind, I feel that would've made it a bit more viable, but sadly, it feels like From ditched this really cool sect of sorceries to be seemingly useless... hopefully they get a buff/update when the DLC comes out

[@rikkucrowe]

The dlc took this video personally

[@newusawhothis1868]

30:50 Dog Is There For Moral Support ❤

[@ShaunRF]

I just watched Pincognito do a PvP build that used these spells with the Staff of the Guilty, and he had a lot of fun doing invasions with it. Of course he also had melee weapons to work with, so he didn't have nearly as many limitations. I can imagine how much worse it would be if you pretty much had only these spells to work with.

[@NiraSader]

By the way, if beating Rennala to get her staff becomes difficult in a run like this, the Crystalian staff is almost as good in scaling as it even up to 80int, and that one is just found in a cave somewhere. Might be worth considering.

[@MonstrumBitumine]

17:00 the ultimate reaction to getting hit

[@nunchuksteev9811]

Blood Lord Mohg is hands down the coolest boss fight in the game. He is badass, the arena is badass, the color scheme is badass, the reward is badass.

[@thetadaoness]

I love your videos, Bushy, and the turn of events at 34:13 literally made me laugh SO HARD!!! I don't enjoy seeing you in agony, but it does make some killer content!

[@ncrnmcn]

"uses a long cast time spell" Placidusaxx: Let me be clear

[@sillyrabbit5459]

Just came back to the channel to see how it was going since your elden ring pivot… looks like you blew up man. This is insane. Congrats!! Glad you’re finding this success.

[@mrmastaofdesasta6994]

Briars of Punishment seems great against Malenia. Seeking, slightly delayed to counter her dodges... Up until the point she decides to use Waterfowl Dance as an input response

[@bobzthabarbarian]

Great run, but the best part of the video is without a doubt 30:51. Precious little pupper!

[@ImNotKaleb]

I pitched this idea to a buddy of mine who is also a KZbinr, and it fell through so instantly bc of how bad these sorceries truly are. Huuuuge props for actually giving this a go, mad respect.

[@Carnationdoll]

I know it's a tiny detail, but my little nerodivergent brain is SO happy that you title these videos "Can I beat" instead of "can YOU beat". The latter always bothers me immensely.

[@Solemiargoylelan333]

I think this is the hardest challenge run yet congratulations on the win man!

[@JoeMama-nd8rj]

hardest one, def not lmao. i couldnt even do it but hes done some insane shit before, at least one being harder than this

[@shaw2024]

Wait until he runs out of ideas and does a fist only rl1

[@tobiookuma1835]

You could have gone with the Albinauric staff pretty early on. It buffs aberrant sorceries, which is only the blood spells. It will also scale their bleed buildup because it works off of arcane. Then you go staff of guilty in your other hand and the thorn set, it does quite a bit of bleed buildup.

[@vorvanjguy3470]

Amazing run, I wonder if stacking two faith sticks would provide better damage

[@maloxi1472]

For this build, using an arcane staff would be better, actually

[@Zenniiiiiii]

Love these challenges, keep them up Bushy! Love ya!!

[@jakeofnotrades13579]

I always thought the red glintstone sorcerers were abhorred for their faith reliance and grotesque spell execution, now I know the ridicule was just them being laughed out of every room at untel they went insane because of how pathetic their spells are

[@Seldion_Ghost]

15:06 "This seems to be working much better than I would expect it to-" *INSTANTLY DIES!* "-ok..."

[@robbe3334]

why does everyone forget that the albinauric staff exists when doing thorn sorceries challenge. it might not help alot but it would defently be alot more bleed procs

[@hugmuun]

The raw magic damage out classes the bleed buildup when you compare a 60 int build using lustats staff and the guilty offhand vs a 60 arcane build with albanuric and guilty off hand

[@jakeofnotrades13579]

He talked about this on stream, said the bleed build up wouldn't be worth the lower sorcery scaling.

[@corkinius5755]

I’m not sure bushy did this in the video but one thing you can do is use them in tandem to drastically decrease the cast time of briars of sin Still not good spells but makes them at least a bit viable

[@oncesilenced5509]

Does challenge, entire build gets buffed three weeks later lol

[@JohnMargherita69420]

Possibly because of this video and similar videos by other challenge runners

[@vocalcalibration8033]

And then the dlc happened

[@Raccoonik]

I made a finger maiden build and thought I could fit in some thorn sorceries. They fit the theme with the angle of burning the erd tree being the first sin, but they are just so bad

[@osets2117]

I'm hoping thorn spells get fleshed out more in the DLC

[@aliesmat8328]

30:50 that doggo moment tho 😂❤️

[@iAstrxx]

Me watching this after the dlc impenetrable thorns💀

[@mr.sheeppeehs4204]

I love how his dog came in just to tell him to get good

[@mugidesu4360]

This did not age well after impenetrable thorns XD

[@futuristicbus61]

I actually really like the aberrant sorceries, I wish there was more of them. I recently started using them, so I came back to this amazing run

[@LeMargot]

It should be mentioned that WornOutGamer-4 has already done this challenge and he did a few things differently that really changed how he played this, recommend checking him out

[@inferno4165]

seeing a revisit of this run with the new dlc spells/incants would be nice

[@TheMetalheadWeeb]

Wouldn’t be as nearly as challenging

[@Protocurity]

I guess this vid was made before the buff to this spell. I ran a faith build on my first playthrough, and I decided to play around with Briars of Punishment on a whim, and I found it to be quite useful. With Alberich's Set and Staff of the Guilty the damage is pretty good, especially for 9 FP per cast, and the self-damage amounts to very little if you have any regenerating gear (I.E. Blasphemous Blade) also equipped.

[@Pale_king1]

This did not age well

[@Apfix02]

This is the best channel for challenges on souls like games, with iron pinapple, your videos have the perfect timing for narration, other channels dont have this thing

[@Scalti]

Love the claim in having a high intelligence of 40 right after getting shunted out of mid air at 34:13 - Awesome run.

[@Coldkill2001]

If Thorn sorceries costed no FP and only health, MAYBE they would be cool

[@caffiend81]

You want Arcane+Albinauric staff for the thorn sorceries. I got through a good chunk of NG+ when I respecced into thorn sorceries for shiggles. It does *really* suck though until you get the ranged thorn sorcery pretty late into the game (hence why I did it on NG+). If you really want the modest boost from Staff of the Guilty, you can dual wield it (but be sure to cast with the Albinauric). The 20% boost from Staff of the Guilty is only for the direct damage, not blood loss, so not really worth it IMO. Better off with one of the thorny shields. FS did nerf bleed builds and Arcane scaling, but gave the Albinauric staff a bleed buildup bonus to compensate, making it about the only "bleed" weapon that didn't lose damage from the nerf. In my play through I focused heavily on Arcane, but I think stopped at 50 or 55, since that's where Arcane hit diminishing returns on both the staff and bleed buildup in general, and then dumped the rest into vigor and a bit into Dex so I could hybrid into bleed melee weapons (something you can't do since you're trying to use only thorn sorcs haha). But the low Arcane cap makes it great for a bloody battlemage style build. Or could pair with one of the seals with a middling Faith breakpoint for a hybrid heretic caster vibe. Not much of a PvP guy but it was funny as hell to surprise invaders. They never expected the RoB Host to sit at range, then suddenly explode with thorns and one shot them as they charged in 🤣

[@DiglettsOtherHalf]

Coming back to this challenge video after the DLC has come out, and Impenetrable Thorns is now a thing, makes it so clear how much of a buff that spell is to Thorn Sorceries as a whole.

[@kalmefaze]

9:33 that cut was priceless

[@Febreeze419]

“Is Tampax the sponsor for this run?” 😂 5:48

[@imyawa]

Really funny seeing this post dlc with the new thorn spells that shred literally everyone in the game

[@ericvela4087]

you really, really love this game

[@EnjoyerOfCats7]

I am thoroughly enjoying these challenge runs

[@DSCris]

29:00 whoaa i've never seen Renalla's phase change get bugged out like that. Killed her the frame her shield went back up so she had a permanent little gold bubble (until the black screen reset her)

[@eddiedieente1340]

This is the most scuffed Elden Ring playthrough ive ever watched. And i love it.