Elden Ring players are pulling off all kinds of bonkers shenanigans, from beating it in under 30 minutes to unlocking cut content through hacks. They’re even destroying bosses with stylish ease, something I wish I were capable of doing. But thanks to fans of FromSoftware’s latest Souls-like, I might’ve found my new favorite strategy for winning: nonstop, hedgehog-style rolling.
The game has equippable items called ashes of war, which you can apply to weapons to change its stat scaling or give it a different weapon skill. This is cool and underscores the breadth of Elden Ring’s customization options. By replacing whatever weapon skill or stat scaling is already on your favorite armament, you can adapt it to your character build. You like that sword you got but hate its weapon skill? Swap it out and just like that, the sword can better work for your playstyle.
This is what I’ve done with one of the two uchigatanas I have. It also seems to be what other players have done after finding the hilariously broken ashes of war called ”lightning ram,” as evidenced by the antics of Twitter user tylxx.
Tylxx posted a clip of themselves participating in Elden Ring PvP, though I wouldn’t call it “participating” so much as “dominating” since the other player literally couldn’t move after Tylxx landed their initial blow. In the clip, Tylxx and a cooperator-in-crime simply spammed the lightning ram weapon skill, rolling like a blade-bedecked hedgehog–or one of the strange Elden Ring rams–until the hostile player was utterly dead. It’s funny but obviously unfortunate for that other player, with Tylxx and their companion posing in the most anime-like way possible afterward to add salt to the wound.
But what makes the lightning ram so broken? Found after killing a Teardrop Scarab in the Atlus Plateau, the move cloaks you in lightning as your character bleats like a goat, curls into a ball, and rolls around like a tumbleweed. It deals high damage, expends only a little bit of focus and stamina, and can be executed repeatedly without pauses. More than that, the lightning ram has high priority, interrupting most attacks in PvP and making it deadly against online players.
Tylxx told Kotaku over direct messages that he and his friend had grown frustrated over being invaded by other players and decided to clap back. But then his friend found one weird trick…
“As far as backstory, the only thing I’d like to stress is that me and my friend [PP in the video] were getting kinda frustrated with invasions and all of the ‘OP build’ nonsense people were using,” Tylxx said. “Typically people would invade when we were goofing around and just one-shot us with the pre-patch Erdtree Shield. Absolutely no fun at all. We made it our mission to at least give people a memorable experience when they invaded us, and given the reception to the video I think we have accomplished that.”
Tylxx’s short clip might be one of the most popular instances of an Elden Ring player rolling for the win, but it certainly isn’t the only one out there. Tons of folks are using the lightning ram to great success, killing tough bosses like Malenia, Blade of Miquella and wrecking a worrying number of online players.
To be honest, I love and hate this. It’s silly fun watching folks choose to roll for the win instead of engaging in honorable, head-to-head combat. But while I can laugh at seeing some poor sap absolutely bludgeoned by balled-up Elden Ring players, being on the receiving end of this probably sucks. Then again, apparently the player Tylxx demolished in the vid found the ass-whooping hilarious. Maybe it’s more fun than it looks.