I feel your pain, when I'm not playing Elden ring I'm thinking about Elden ring. I've even had dreams about Elden ring.

"I don't know where she was when Mohg kidnapped Miquela" - If I understood correctly (and I might not have), she was fighting Radahn when Mohg kidnapped Miquela, and only left Miquela's side in the first place because Radahn fixing the firmament in place in some way disrupted the Haligtree's functioning.

The issue with Godskin Duo (and the double crucible knights) is that they weren't designed together. Ornstein and Smough work because one is fast and the other is slow, they cover each other's weaknesses but you can still split them apart.

Having done a shield-only run myself now, there's a few shields/skills/talismans he didn't use or mention I want to shout out to anyone else who wants to try:

13:15 clears throat ~WELL ACTUALLY~ you can avoid fighting the Draconic Tree Sentinel. Fia's questline gives you access to a teleporter that takes you inside the capital (East Capital Rampart grace). Not sure if you have to beat the Lichdragon or just give her the Cursemark of Death, but you definitely need two Great Runes. Granted this requires taking out Radahn, the Valiant Gargoyles, completing the Nokron bit of Ranni's questline, the Divine Tower of Liurnia, go through Deeproot Depths, and defeat Fia's Champions just to skip one bossfight.

So fun fact about the frostbite status; part of the reason why it takes so long to proc it again after the initial burst is because there's a window where the status bar has to drain because frostbite increases damage from all sources, so it's a window to do damage. It can be pretty slow to drain but you can instantly empty and reset the bar and status effect with fire damage. If you proc it and get the burst of damage, hit the enemy with literally anything that does fire damage and they're back to square one for you to build it back up. Might've been useful here because the additional damage you get for the frostbite duration might be less than just resetting and proccing it again.

"Godfrey seems like he'd be a really difficult boss to beat."

My man really just decided to recreate the rising of the shield hero in elden ring. Props to you my friend for the sheer amount of dedication and will to playing with a shield only.

Honestly whenever I see a summon sign with an unusual weapon set, i get excited. I'm like, no weapon and only shields?? Ok this person must be an expert player who needs to do some weird shit to even feel a little bit of challenge

A trick I do for souls boss fights is to not attack at all until I can survive the boss fight indefinitely without dying. It forces your brain to only think defensively and you aren't even looking for openings to attack, you are only focused on avoiding getting hit. When you do start attacking, the fight is super easy and usually beat it on the first try. It seems to go a lot faster and stick in your brain better than trying to learn attack and defense both at the same time.

Enjoyed your commentary and play style. You don’t have that loud, shouting all the time, rapid-fire speaking style that a LOT of YouTube gamers seem locked into, so it’s a refreshing change of pace. Couple that with a couple corny (but genuinely funny) jokes, and you convinced me to subscribe. Keep it up!

45:40 "I deserved that."

Malenia still being able to heal herself when hitting a 100% blocking shield is such a stupid artifact of the fight that I'm convinced its an oversight. At no other point in the game (not even during the gimmick Rykard) does a boss just straight up punish you for your equipment choices. It completely undermines all the extra work they've done in Elden Ring to make sword and board playstyles as interesting and fun as no shield runs.

Im so happy that lots of content creators embraced challenge runs this time around!

Bro thought he could slander the skum