Aaaaaand rest.*
I'm in two minds about the game. Yes, it's an amazing, creative, generous game that I've been playing almost solidly for 6 weeks, but the first half of the game is better than the second, and the latter stages felt like a real slog. I was tearing my hair out with frustration fighting Maliketh, who I'd been one hit away from defeating
on my first attempt and then never got even close to again for about four hours worth of trying. This was the end of probably my least favourite dungeon of the game (if I have to fight one more of those sodding eagles in the DLC I will burn Fromsoft to the ground); hell, I'd spent over an hour just trying to kill the Tree Sentinel
directly outside of the boss room. And just after I'd done the Twin Crucible Knights.... and shortly after the Twin Gargoyles. All of that stuff in fairly quick succession absolutely broke my resolve and by the end I just wanted it to be over. I just dropped the controller on the desk after finally killing the Elden Beast (a boss fight I'd maybe have enjoyed were it not for needing to kill bloody Radagon every single time before I could attempt it) and didn't really feel much of a sense of accomplishment. But I never wanted to actually stop, and I'm not sure if it was sheer bloody-minded stubbornness or actual desire to finish it. I still don't want to stop; I'm now toying with a new build and will be making the trip to fight Malenia.
Build-wise, I spent the first half of the game using a Uchigatana and shield, then a few hours of the Bloodhound Fang to change things up a bit, then to the Nagakiba, then finally to Eleonora's Poleblade from about the third-way point to the end of the game. I did make judicious use of the Mimic Tear summon, which I suspect did dull my skills a little bit, but two Blood Loss poleblades (each doing around 120-160 bleed build-up in a single two-handed strike) is ridiculously powerful in places. I actually ended up purposefully not using the summon to fight Godfrey because it felt like I was cheesing too much of the game.
*I didn't actually rest, I immediately went and murdered Mohg, Lord of Blood to give me DLC access. First to last attempt in about 20 minutes, which was refreshing.
I suspect I'm going to dive straight into the DLC when it arrives. I missed experiencing the vast majority of this as a collective when it released due to giving up in Stormveil Castle, I'd quite like to see the DLC when everyone's having the same experience.