Elden Ring players are hard at work putting the new Tarnished Edition DLC’s gear to the test

Hand Elden Ring players a handful of new armor sets and weapons and they’ll spend the next week or more experimenting and crunching the numbers to find out how they stack up against everything else in the legendary action RPG.

That is all that’s been happening in the last few days since FromSoftware dropped the Tarnished Edition, a $5 DLC pack with new starting classes, armor sets, and horse armor.

It took a little while for people to figure out where to find everything added in the DLC. FromSoft did what FromSoft does and snuck them into places you wouldn’t expect. But now that everyone feels like they’ve found it all, including some minor additions that weren’t announced, the testing has begun.

By far the most popular new weapon is a greatsword you can steal from a new NPC who can show up for a duel. Leontiel’s Greatsword is a direct reference to a character from Dark Souls 2 and comes with a powerful new move that mimics real life bullfighters, or matadors. When you use it, your character holds out a red cloth before stepping around your target and thrusting the sword into their back. It’s easily one of the slickest animations in the game and, unsurprisingly, has players eager to see how it fairs against bosses.

Reddit user SaxSlaveGael put it to work on the one bull-like boss in the game, titling their post, “There’s Only One Boss that truly deserves the Matador Treatment”. When used on old Gaius in the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC, the sword’s Muleta skill works just like the real taunt that matadors do with the instrument it’s named after. Gaius’ boar was not ready for the feint and follow-up backstab. Is it the most efficient way to defeat the boss? Nope. Is it the sickest way to defeat the boss? Absolutely.

This weapon was made for this purpose specially from r/Eldenring

Another user, Ilamahradeys, took the sword for a spin against the Full-Grown Fallingstar Beast at the center of a crater in Mt. Gelmir. Their character must’ve been pretty over-leveled because one jab with the sword knocked off almost the entire health bar, instantly staggering the rock-like creature. I won’t lie: Watching a boss as resilient and annoying as the Fallingstar Beast get completely dunked on, with style, no less, was one of the most satisfying things I’ve seen all week.

You’d think that in a game as challenging as Elden Ring players would only ever use armor for practical reasons. But, as is tradition with these games, “fashion souls” is more important to some people than pure defense. And those players are in love with the shiny new chestpiece from the Idus starting class. It’s a svelte, polished chestplate that blends with a lot of other sets in the game. One player has it on to cosplay Casca from Berserk, while another is too distracted by the buff it seems to give to your greatest asset.

I love the Idus Knight set so much, it’s so cool! from r/Eldenring

Elden Ring also attracts the tryhards who need to know how viable all the new stuff is for their 90th playthrough. There’s a Reddit user who blasted through the game as the new heavy armor class. They say it’s a particularly sturdy class that takes some time to fully come into its own. It’s boosted vigor (health) and strength stats—two things melee-focused characters tend to stack—help it shine in the mid-to-late game when the nastiest bosses start showing up.

All of this has me excited to start up a new Elden Ring playthrough myself. The Tarnished Edition isn’t a game-changing DLC by any means, but it has just enough new toys to play with to make me want to get in there and mess around. We don’t always get a neat little package like this for only $5 and it’s probably just enough to keep me busy until the flood of September games begins.

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