Horrifying Elden Ring Invasion

[@RestingLuge]

GOD, I love you saint. You know what I love? You're off-the dome. You literally just put it together like this. You knew what you were doing. y'know, but you didn't write a script or anything. Because that's how talented you are!!

[@Steezington]

That’s exactly what i was thinking, be sure to heap praise upon him.

[@saintriot]

More and more people are saying it

[@Danzpo]

Morty sentence.

[@EscapeTheGuitar]

@@Danzpo I had to read it with his voice and it matches

[@oEllery]

The host survived roughly 13 seconds without his level 500+ friend

[@zaajo]

Saint Riot you are a god among youtube video makers. #1 off-the-dome editor of all time easily. The story arc you took us through with this video shows not only your proficiency in editing, but also the quality of your character as a whole. You are a blessing, never stop rasslin'

[@kaztheunbreakable]

bro

[@Yeshaboo]

this is true

[@michaelnelson8618]

and stop with the illegal backstab maneuvers. you know they were outlawed for a reason.

[@RENDAN_iel]

I know it’s impossible, but the transition from 13:34-13:35 in liurnia to the forgotten lands (while sped up at the same speed) tricked my brain into thinking you’d run that whole way chasing them for a half a second 😀

[@thrice1201]

It's easy to forget with Saint that although he is more of a "fun" invader, he is quite capable of turning up the heat and pulling off some pretty high-level stuff. Great vid Man.

[@wyrdthings]

I can hear the pain in your voice and it is a mood ngl. Downscaling in this game is a joke

[@valorune]

and overleved phantoms are way more common then they were in the past. I usually invade rl80 and at least 60% of the invasions include at least one

[@loubloom1941]

Cry more

[@NobleVagabond2552]

@@loubloom1941 ah yes the classic “i have a child’s brain” “cry more” comment. As if that was a worthy addition to an actual conversation, discussion, debate, argument, etc. Suffice to say, you’re an idiot

[@dingdong1279]

@@loubloom1941 Mr RL 521 over here

[@trtrion1999]

@@loubloom1941 you will cry more w hen they nerf over leveled phantom and you will quit the game becasue you are bad

[@user-37dvk]

Damn, remember when in DS1 invaders were forced to fight darkmoon blade invaders 50+ levels above them as sort of "punishment" for interrupting other people's coop with their friends, but only if the host uses a consumable item they need to buy after they are killed by an invader? Now invaders are forced to fight summons 100+ levels above them in 2/3 invasions at all times

[@casulscrub5978]

Ah, indictment. The good old days.

[@glatykoffi6672]

The invader is the most nerfed mechanic in the souls serie

[@FKyoutubeSERIOUSLY]

On one hand, I hate it. On the other, I understand that as invaders, we naturally are gonna be more skilled than the average host/phantom. Unfortunately, balancing toward that means that experienced hosts/phantoms have a MAJOR advantage. In response, invaders must turn to scum tactics if they want to even try to win. Overall, no one wins, man. I miss DS2 invasions where estus was blocked for "everyone" and there was a lot of tactical second-to-second decision making. Slow enough that the skill-gap between experienced and novice wasn't huge, but the ceiling was still pretty high.

[@envoyofrot7046]

@@glatykoffi6672 Yeah, I thought it was bad for invaders already but in Elden Ring they really just said "Fuck you and play PvE" to all invaders

[@lefuillesmortes72]

No, I remember darkmoon invasions hardly ever working at all.

[@popeshopes9973]

That arms race bit is so true every time I do a cosplay build I get teabags.that’s when I take it out on every group after with the cheese builds and teabags of my own.truly a vicious and toxic cycle .

[@RayTC]

now imagine TWO of those guys and you have 90% of elden ring invasions

[@amberhernandez]

This reminds me of when I was doing a Banished Knight cosplay at level 30 in Stormveil (Stormveil Recruit was the name), and this phantom is slicing up enemies left and right with Rivers while spamming Ancient Death Rancor off a Lusat's staff. I come up behind them to attack, and the phantom turns a split-second early, then whips out a Corpse Piler and bleeds me twice in three hits. 1000 HP and armour with high bleed resist is _not_ enough to survive 99 ARC status build-up at level 30 LMAO

[@saintriot]

Yeah this is a good point. At 30 the downscaling works a little better than at 60 but throw all that out the window on status build up which is not downscaled at all

[@kimlee6643]

The desire to see the rune count on an iffy phantom can be so intense that I have a feeling Michaelzaki purposefully designed this "mechanic". Great content.

[@gedewahyu.p]

mechanic name "the power of friendship"

[@nananamamana3591]

Ya know what you said about the arms race between phantoms and invaders is pretty spot on. Most CoOpers are out here doin' what they think is fun, using what they think is fun. Some of them even do so for the sake of fashion! You see a big idiot in the fatty armor with two big messy ultra great hammers, doing the artorias flips and you got a *GOOD* idea that this guy is here because he watches Skidonic videos, or he's seen an Iron Pineapple video, or hee saw a silly post on reddit and thought being an obese ninja with hammers the size of minivans was the apex of comedy. Meanwhile, homeboi invader is here with his Powerful Poking Partizan and a name like "Pikeman Troy" trying to be lorefriendly and cool and he's dressed up like the militia men because he's PvP Roleplaying as a dirty scruffy militia man with a spear but he's SLIGHTLY more badass than them other dudes. Right? Right. So. What our boy Troy realizes upon coming in and seeing mega fatty hammer lord hit whip out a staff and cast the death star laser at him to deal 800 damage to them in one hit is that obese ninja man is probably not a pure strength build. He's probably level 130 or higher, and the presence of an invader has made the fatty go from his "funny xD lol" build to "This does a lot of damage and will make the bad red man go away" build. Now, our boy Troy here is level 60 or so, maybe a little higher. He's got his Power Poking Partizan because that's a funny weapon that does ok. But he's also got the fucking big fuck off royal knights resolve giga uber halberd that can counter hit for like, 1800 damage. That's not a FUN weapon, he doesnt pack that weapon for FUN -- the Powerful Poking Partizan with the stupid anime wind jumpy move is for FUN. He came in here hoping to have FUN with his FUN build but now has realized nobody here wants to have fun. They want to play the game, they want to complete the gameplay objective "kill bad invader man" so, that means the invader needs to play the gameplay objective "dumpster these co-copers like compost". You touched on it in your bloodborne videos too, like, how, as a conscientious invader looking for a good fight, you'll have weapons that are more geared to fighting lowbies. Ya know, little baby hosts or players who are kind bad at the game because they don't know any better. This is a conscious choice made by invaders to say "I would like to enjoy a rousing competition between you folk and myself, on as equal footing as possible between us. You have numbers, I have skill. Let's have some fun together." But Phantoms don't understand or share this mentality. It's like... the idea of deliberately not using something because it is so strong it would banish whoever it hit to a loading screen is anaethema to them. Literally, the text "You've been invaded" has them seeing red and any pretense of silly shenanigans they'd previously been enjoying is dropped. Sometimes they'll hold onto it for as long as it takes for you to get them to half health, THEN they whip out the moonveil, or vike's, or their favored flavor of bleed stick, or whatever.

[@lususnaturae881]

I remember a time when the most optomized build was a falchion with a weapon buff, the only "tech" people used was ghost hit wog to stop shields being unpunishable and ganks were heavily frowned upon and a bleed weapon killed cheaters. Nowadays everyone who wants to pvp has to learn how to hotswap, use glitches in order to fly to the afk farming host, and pack a character with every weapon in the game and keep cheat engine open to kill and curse negative hp script kiddies.

[@spacedoohicky]

I think this is partly right, but also partly wrong. I know people who do both. They make overleveled characters to help hosts, and also invade with twink builds using harassment tools. These particular people know what is happening. I personally build twink builds for coop to be a similar level as a host, but also troll invaders who act tough. There are more dimensions to this than there may seem.

[@Drunk_Souls]

Some phantoms really are the walking talking personification of AIDS. I got T bagged once. Now I use dual straight swords.

[@valorune]

yeah the stalemate invasions are rough. I had a similar one near that ballista pathway in Stormveil, the one between the two cliffs. I don't want to run straight into their gank, and they don't want to fight an invader with PvE cover. tbh these invasions are why I carry "harassment tools" like the poison/explosive clumps, bows, jar cannon, etc. Stuff that pressures them to fight back.

[@shinren_]

Hahaha usually the tripple shot bow does the trick 😂😂

[@NocteAeternus]

Mad props for the huge Barker Bomb Bait, that was a fucking throwback holy shit

[@ShanalFunLand]

My thing about these phantoms too is like where is the over leveled symbol? In DS3 it would at least tell you if they were overleveled unless they were unscaled of course, and I highly doubt that many people in elden ring know how to perform that glitch

[@saintriot]

Part of me wonders if they got rid of invaders seeing the symbol because we were always shaming phantoms about their level.

[@EvolvedDinosaur]

Holy fuck Saint, that was literally the greatest sequence of invasions I’ve ever seen. I cried at the end… twice; once for each time you killed them! The beautiful editing and composition of this… this masterful work of art- it’s enough to bring anyone to tears. Please please please make a part two where it’s literally just this video again, but with a director’s commentary on top of the existing audio! 😊

[@giantdad2500]

Excited to see barker bomb bait working again, havent seen it in ages

[@TheSilvantor]

Downscaling in this game is hilarious. I remember invading at like level 30 in weeping peninsula (the mines to be precise) and the phantom not only would have taken like 12 hits to kill, he was also spamming waves of gold in that narrow dungeon that took half my health per hit. Absolutely unwinnable, considering I didn't have a pvp setup, I just decided to invade with what I had.

[@masonguyman3074]

You bring a smile to my face in difficult times, Saint. And you have been doing so for years. I always crack up at your funny characters and I enjoy your genuine love for these games. I am truly thankful from the bottom of my heart for the time you take to create and share these videos with us.

[@superazell]

The silliest little guys are also the most terrifying big men

[@DonMcGlass]

I can approve of the Barker Bomb Bait strat

[@Matthew-jl6gl]

It's Saint O' Clock!

[@LautrecOfCarim]

I'm pretty sure rope bridges don't have feet. The only feet I associate with said bridges are those of dragons tearing them apart. Heh.

[@CKVideoGames]

Serpent Hunter finish was just…perfection

[@darkswordartorias7517]

I love saint riot content when he contents everywhere and all the characters from previous seasons make a comeback like the barker bait and guy and the society

[@Finlandpro1]

does dark sword artorias also use a shield of want?

[@darkswordartorias7517]

@@Finlandpro1 you are correct as this is cannonically accurate to my lore

[@232_two]

when you playing elden ring but you get hit with that dollar store 20 minute invasion

[@cwonincucumber1552]

Just Fell asleep to you playing ds1, woke up to a hallucination of you chasing down your own white summon in the nightmare realm and now know how to toggle escape. I am now dark souls multiplayer.

[@eldenstinker5310]

Really appreciate the editing of this, good way to break up the super long invasion to keep things refreshing while also suspenseful. Also nice reverse quickstep bs.

[@hobosorcerer]

That ravioli backstab was absolutely delicious.

[@Steezington]

These videos are really well done saint. I think this one and the “double it and give it to the next person” video are my favorites, keep it up!

[@Purpleturtlehurtler]

Those 20 minutes just flew by. Great content!

[@coldfire2753]

This was an awesome video. Intersplicing other invasions during the main one, was a nice touch

[@skrublord6000]

Yknow I found saint when I started ds3, I got really good at ds3 pvp cause of him. Its amazing to see to see the persistence of dedicated invaders in these games.

[@MrSlaughterrific]

excellent. I sure am tired of password phantoms. It's pretty silly. I guess it's karma for the twinking I did like 12 years ago in ds1. Still, It's great to find ways to beat these players who stack every little advantage they can. They try to make it so easy. They aren't willing to fight unless you have your legs broken first

[@smbusinessowner]

The claims adjuster says it's Tanimura's fault

[@Yeshaboo]

love u saint, all the stuff u mentioned throughout this video is exactly what i’ve been dealing with through my low lvl invading builds, ur so relatable, can’t believe how off the dome this script-less video was, the talent is immeasurable and my day is excellent as a result. pogchamp

[@Arno_vanZyl]

If there is ever an award given for narration, you, sir must get it.

[@Nunkuruji]

Overworld invasions just don't play as well as the predecessors, as the invader is far less of an impediment to progressing. The overworld run: 1) I am confident that I'm better than the invader, don't need to immediately deal with them, and will go on my way. 2) I am confident that my overleveled password summon can deal with them at any time, let's go. 3) Oh no run, it's the bad red man. Transition to Belias phase?

[@suddenlysarablog]

Absolutely godlike editing, switching the music to "Run Past Through the Plain" from FFT when you switched to chasing that host through ALL of Liurnia!!

[@saintriot]

Good ear

[@seanfussa3076]

The music's crescendo as you say "five-hundred and twenty-one" is just perfect

[@BeefHammer1]

Best Elden Ring pvp content creator.

[@derpi3438]

Lately I've been seeing more and more people say "check out a couple Saint Riot vids" as a reply when someone would complain about invasions or something similar. It's pretty great

[@lagideath]

An RL521 phantom can literally have 60/60/80/80/80/80/80/80 for stats, just insane

[@thenobody7509]

From what I understand. Players will tbag at you because weirdly enough for some that makes them angry and thus makes them try to be more aggressive which in turn makes them make more mistakes. Basically, they're trying to make you mad so they can kill you

[@vennicerunnos]

Really? I always read that as like the silly little happy dancing crouching guy greeting, or like a really informal bow... though now that I think about it, this may be because I grew up playing jedi academy and some people used the crouch as a bow before duels

[@thenobody7509]

@@vennicerunnos it can be a greeting but it can also be a taunt. Those guys most likely were trying to taunt riot and make him angry.

[@GaMeZaHoY]

saint's tarantino edits makes me rewatch vids like this all the time

[@ValuedCustomer1]

“You might kill me now but you’ve not broken my spirit” killed me. That’s exactly how the elden ring community is

[@stormheretic2538]

My War: Elden Ring

[@marealnamenott]

oh man, hearing "barker bomb bait" in 2023 really took me down memory lane.. good old days..

[@Petrolhead99999]

My favorite ER attacks to parry are the BH Fang followup and the second flurry of Waterfowl Dance.

[@moonbather4724]

Great commentary and editing! Good watch. Nj on the level 500 fun police

[@undefinedvariable8085]

Over-levelled phantoms aside, that chicken-and-egg problem with arms race between hosts/summons and invaders is symptomatic of the inherent flaws of ER pvp; namely: - all the imbalances of AoWs/weapon skills (some of which turn dex weapons into str wepons and str weapons into dex weapons), - affinities (which proc in seconds making dex weapons hit like str weapons without any of the tradeoffs), - buff stacking (which can make you nigh on invulnerable, rush in now and just spam R1 because you can outlast and outtrade), and - unbalanced metas (e.g. broken hit boxes on jump attacks with powerstancing great spears, broken dead angles on curved greatswords, etc.). Casting is a whole other kettle of fish. But address all that shit right there (there are ways) and you no longer have the one-shot gimmicks and far-superior-meta situations (at the cost of other metas) that foment all manner of toxicity in the community. But unpopular opinion, I know, you get pilloried for suggesting that these things make it all too easy.

[@SnakeOmni]

Good Job Saint.

[@coopahj9604]

Saint, your existence is not only valid; but greatly appreciated S tier content as always

[@F2_Spammer]

You found the master of all elements, the avatar 😂

[@thescoutguy8367]

I sort of take the T-bagging as a “please…have mercy. We can just talk this out. There’s no need to get so upset.”

[@envoyofrot7046]

Downscaling is really so ridiculously bad and frustrating when you are against a level 300+ Bullgoat tank that does 4x as much damage as you...

[@markd9318]

Whats truly horrifying is getting jump attacked spammed by an over leveled phantom dual wielding greatswords (yes the guts one) while wearing full veterans AND light rolling. Then they do a point down or tbag. Violence is the only answer

[@briannakata]

masterpiece of a saint video. this one is your pulp fiction for sure

[@gentlejuliet]

The editing in this video is really neat

[@benphish]

That Bob Segar bit had me dying

[@Pazooz]

13:45 just leaving this here to document this hilarious moment and amazing advice. Ive parried so many people with this AND it made my friend a menace to fight 1v1

[@Cambone13]

Please accept my heaps of praise as validation of your existence.

[@foolfoolfoolfoolfoolfool]

Another saint riot banger

[@sunsetsbane5758]

saint is the best souls pvp youtuber out rn

[@Fink621]

This has a better plot than every single CW show ever created.

[@micke6705]

I love how you did a spin before you parried him at 18:00

[@wamoo577]

Yep the arms race relationship is spot on. Invaders naturally find all the busted stuff in the game because they need every little help they can get in 3v1 scenarios. However at this point in the game, gankers and co opers have copied the invaders and now use the same stuff. It’s way harder to win invasions now then it was a year ago.

[@wubwubdododo5656]

I recently started deploying the "Attack, then parry after it lands" against aggressive players as well, super fun

[@GiraffesEatStuff]

Now I really want to play again honestly, these looked really fun. I made a 31 str/27 arc character for the covenant, wasn’t sure when to start using it or practicing for the event. Haven’t tried the arenas yet. Managed to beat both Mohgs within 15h, and the trident looks fun. Can’t make Mohg’s top match with much, but I’ll make some religious cultist type thing for the theme. Kind of hoping interviews go alright enough otherwise and that to be set. Finally 3 called me back this week, really excited. Hopefully nothing messes with the event

[@CsStrez]

The regular Sanguine Noble gear matches with everything a lot better.

[@GiraffesEatStuff]

@@CsStrez I KNOW, practically everything goes well with it. I just wanted to make the shoulder piece and robe work. With Briar helm and blackflame monk gauntlets it looked like some medieval war cult attire, without looking over the top/high rank. The overall outfit fits a horror theme somewhat in that sense. But yeah I might try to find a better set.

[@teamkimochi191]

The Industrial Password Matchmaking and it's consequences have been a disaster for the human race

[@audunms4780]

you are mighty talented saint.

[@Apexx27]

Saint continues to be so entertaining, compared to all the other pvp KZbinrs.

[@murderous1823]

Absolutely amazing Saint

[@TheCohesiveGarage]

Cocky over leveled phantoms have the potential to be the catalyst for the best invasions. Go figure.

[@jasonjordan8376]

I’m not sure what I enjoy more on videos like this, the actual invasions or Saints commentary, lol.

[@scragglie]

another classic from the saint.

[@lemurtails_]

GIVE ME VALIDATION...for real though. top tier content

[@SneakybeakyScrub]

honestly long invasions in the open world at that level seem fun. i wouldnt evencare about dying because being the villian in an invasion long enough to be memorable story is just fun

[@GENdandyboy]

Yes yes Saint truly a cinematic masterpiece good job.

[@Grimmjar]

You got me with the "zweihänder" pronounciation first ❤ , and now i´m subbed.

[@hellojim7245]

15:21 I had absolutely 0 clue you could parry the NPC spells as an invader

[@nicklara7230]

excellent video as always. A highlight to my day, Praise the Saint_riot!

[@sebasminault5576]

Saint Riot you are the hero we need

[@kstshn]

You are my favourite storyteller

[@giantSIGHT]

love the pacing/editing on this one saint like if you found this validating

[@samlee7805]

There's been a tiny surge of cheaters in ps5, players(cheaters) either invade, blue or tounge in low levels, but save edit their stats to max, with all the ashes and weapons in the game. Especially japanese, Chinese, French, Swiss, and american players, well in my experience anyways. So in low levels, there's a 50-50 chance you'll invade someone with a phantom or a blue that does shitzillion damage, maybe even the host. I know about the finger glitch, where it resets or disables the phantom downscaling, but a lot of times, i dont use that item cos i know how to find a host. Especially at lvl60, these can be annoying and unfair. Awesome video by the way saint :)

[@30year-oldboomer17]

jesus christ how horrifying level 521 and still gets their shit pushed in

[@youluvana]

lvl 521 probably has 80 points in every damage attribute. Strength, dex, int, faith and arcane. AT least 60 vigor, 40 mind and 99 endurance. That's probably what they are going for, considering how strong light roll is.

[@hohohoupufuru]

18:15 an arms race is right, it's madness on both sides I invade in Stormveil and get destroyed by overleveled phantoms I gold phantom in Stormveil and there's a nitwit chucking rot pots knowing full well a host would likely not have a cure at that point in the game

[@boungiorno4765]

Love your vids saint

[@realBlackFriza]

Time to go back and check the play lists Here for the support

[@PomPomegrenade]

It's not the players' fault for defaulting to playstyles that are super unfun for the opposing side it's the devs' job to create a healthy online ecosystem, and it's their failure to balance this game that is the cause for the rot pot spamming powerstance bleed invaders and overleveled phantoms with endless waves of blues I was doing a taunter's tongue run recently and the amount of invaders that immediately go for the kill and start spamming rot pots and L1s is just sad, I was playing dark souls 3 online just before and the contrast in the quality of balancing (and connectivity) made me stop playing online halfway

[@Finlandpro1]

are you implying that dark souls 3 multiplayer is unbalanced? Because its honestly quite the opposite lol

[@thiagosaloto5137]

I dont know if you are aware saint but if you use phantom bloody finger for somente reason the game remover the downscaling from overleveled phantoms, i saw that you used one at around 11:00 invasion where the Black Fire Ball almost deleted your HP because you have only 2 in your inventory, test it out later if you want to confirm

[@CsStrez]

He's mentioned it on stream IIRC, but sometimes you just have to use the phantom finger.

[@envoyofrot7046]

Wait, is that actually true? Does From Software know that bug?

[@CsStrez]

@@envoyofrot7046 yeah it was introduced/broke in Patch 1.08 I believe. Since 1.09 hasn’t been announced/dropped yet(when they normally would’ve dropped it according to their schedule) it’ll probably coincide with the DLC announcement.

[@envoyofrot7046]

@@CsStrez Really inexcusable to leave such a broken glitch in the game for so long... I hope they will patch it soon

[@regal-27]

I'm shocked at the lack of comments asking why this build is at lvl 62.

[@wolframban]

Didn't know you were a Tactics Ogre enjoyer until I recognized that ost, cheers

[@saintriot]

Matsuno is the GOAT

[@davilg007]

barker bomb bait? that's a name I haven't heard in a long time... like, a year I always just get jump attacked after throwing bombs

[@freddart5163]

Is surprised Saint doesn't use Carian retaliation on moonvails WA

[@skynaxus1853]

My mouth dropped when I heard the level and saw the runes from the phantom.

[@uang_7611]

Ok I've gotten to 6:27 and I have a suspicion, so, I have a level 70+12 build that also uses soarseal and a few days ago I invaded with it. I got into the world of these 2 guys clearly trying to gank, the phantom hit me with a bolt of gransax while it was raining and it didn't do NEARLY as much damage as that piercing fang you got hit with. The phantom also dropped over 300k runes when I defeated him so he was overleveled as hell. What I'm trying to get at, is that I believe when you invade, sometimes, phantoms are not downscaled at all, even if you don't use the phantom bloody finger.

[@Finlandpro1]

it might be that the phantom didnt meet the requirements for the weapon and that made him deal less damage. In other souls games you could use some skills with weapons without having to meet all the required stats, but for a weaker effect.

[@uang_7611]

@@Finlandpro1 how does a level 700 phantom, not meet the requirements for their weapon.