Game of the Year award-winning title Elden Ring recently hit its one-year anniversary; time really does fly when you’re having fun dodge rolling! Looking back on my experience playing Elden Ring this past year, a real highlight was how much I ended up enjoying the player-versus-player (PvP) elements. I had a blast playing through the campaign and defeating the epic bosses, but there was just something satisfying about going back and passing on a bit of the ass-whooping I received from invaders during my playthrough to other new players. It’s like a rite of passage you have to undergo, and it’s only fair you get to have some fun dishing it back out, right?
So after completing my playthrough of Elden Ring and having copped my fair share of being screwed over by invaders, I decided it was time to dish back out some decisive dickery. I had recently acquired the perfect trolling spell, Mimic’s Veil, and thought to myself — what better way to give someone the Elden Ring experience than by simply defeating them as a pot plant? I found myself a great little spot. Just past the area where you defeat Margit, there’s a perilous cliffside lined with stairs that was just begging to have some unsuspecting players pushed off. I readied my spells and actions and searched for someone to invade.
I got a match and loaded in, quickly ran to my newly found spot of choice on the stairs next to the cliff, and turned myself into a plant. I watched as the host ran past me with a summoned buddy in tow. They didn’t suspect a thing. I waited a moment and then undid my transformation, used my Prattling Pate item to yell “HELLO” a couple of times, and then quickly cast Mimic’s Veil to transform back into a plant. Just as planned, the dumbfounded duo came running back out at the top of the stairs looking for me.
The summoned buddy went running past me back down the stairs to investigate the bottom area. The unsuspecting host followed him slowly but held back to let him fight first, but unfortunately for them, they stopped right in front of me. I quickly undid the spell and chanted THIS, IS, SPARTA to myself as I spartan-kicked the shit out of the host, sending them sailing off the side of the cliff to their demise. Their summoned buddy was just heading back to the stairs and stopped, looking at me dismayed as I wave-emoted to him and his dying host. I couldn’t help but laugh; it felt great to deal back some of the pain I have endured from invasions during my playthrough.
After my first success, I spent some time scouting out other prime invading locations, looking for some spots that would really let me catch some hosts with their pants down. I settled on the area “Brace of the Haligtree,” which featured a good amount of verticality and some dangerously narrow tree branches with a deadly fall below them. This time around, I took a more combat-oriented approach; the goal was to look goofy and taunt them with some emotes into coming after me to a spot that would put them at a disadvantage.
I donned my finest Albinauric Mask, which looks like a goofy alien / frog, and set the emotes I wanted to use along with some incredibly powerful spells I had. I got in position and after some time was pulled in to invade. Not far off in the distance, I saw the host along with two players they’d summoned. This would be trickier to pull off, but even more rewarding if I could take out all three in one go with my plan.
I ran within sight of them and used my Grovel for Mercy emote, which caused my character to get down on his knees, bow his head, and wave his arms in a “don’t hurt me” fashion. To them I would have looked like a silly alien hat-wearing invader just pleading for his life.
The host and his backup started to head towards me, so I leapt out of my emote and started to run. I managed to loop around them and get them chasing me in the direction I wanted, up more and more flights of stairs. Eventually I got to my goal, a nice, long, extra narrow tree branch, quite high above the ground — a fall that would certainly kill in Elden Ring. I ran up the branch until I was quite far out, and then I turned around and used my Sitting Sideways emote, or as I like to call it, the “paint me like one of your French girls” emote.
The host and his duo of summons who had paused at the start of the branch to see what I would do fell for my emote taunt; all three of them started to make their way up the tree branch with weapons at the ready. It was time to shine. Little did they know I happened to have the incredibly powerful dragon breath-style attack called Placidusax’s Ruin from a hidden boss dragon. As they ran at me, I popped up out of my emote, drew my staff, and grinned to myself as I cast my spell.
A giant dragon’s head appeared above me, firing a powerful focused lightning beam that swept them in an arc, nearly killing them immediately. One summon tried to roll to avoid the first part of the spell and much to my delight rolled off the tree and fell like a rock to faceplant in the pavement below. The other two tried to turn around and run back. Unfortunately for them, the attack hits in three strikes, and as they had barely turned around, the second beam zapped them both in the ass, frying them. The last thing they got to see was a goofy-looking alien invader waving goodbye.
I was absolutely stoked to have pulled off such an elaborate plan, and damn was it fun to do. If you’ve ever thought about invading but then decided against it because you didn’t want to be a dick, well, I’d highly encourage you to reconsider. It’s something I’ve come to find to be genuinely one of the funniest parts of Elden Ring, and hey, if the bosses get be assholes all the time, I don’t see why we can’t be sometimes too.
