Elden Ring has had many hotly contested debates since release but one settled topic among the community is the value of Vigor. Unfortunately for some playing cooperatively, it seems not all hosts have learned how effective more health can be at surviving a single attack from Elden Ring's bosses.
Vigor is an attribute that primarily influences a player's health points, as well as granting a minor increase to fire defense. Previous FromSoftware titles also include an attribute which functions similarly, but while playing Elden Ring it becomes evident that health scaling, and the need for it, operates differently than before. Take Dark Souls 3 for example, where the soft cap for Vigor is 26-29, meaning that any further leveling of this attribute will provide diminishing returns. This is often the point at which players will start to invest in other statistics and flesh out whatever builds they have in mind for their current playthrough.
Elden Ring comes with a few notable alterations to this prior formula, highlighted to the extreme by Reddit user Bill_9999 and their unfortunately brief boss encounter. Summoned to another player's world, the glowing Tarnished can be seen approaching the fog wall for Astel, Stars of Darkness, a challenging optional boss located in Yelough Anix Tunnel on the Consecrated Snowfield's south-western edge. The host enters, and they follow shortly after, applying all of their buffs before tragedy strikes. Astel's arena wide beam attack fires towards the left, striking the host and wiping away a hilariously low health pool before the fight could even begin.
The redditor went on to calculate that the host could have had a little as 14 Vigor, but later believed it to be 19, after factoring in a talisman popular with mages which reduces health by 15%. Comments ostensibly agreed that by this point, which is unquestionably late game, no one should have below 40 Vigor unless they are attempting an Elden Ring challenge run.
The clip is simultaneously painful and hilarious to watch, especially given how insistent the Elden Ring community has been regarding the importance of Vigor and that only leveling to 27 like previous games is no longer a viable strategy for most. Additionally, cooperative play in Elden Ring is hardly a smooth and intuitive experience, with summoners often forced to wait patiently for hosts to bring them in through a rather clunky system that falters when compared with the majority of modern cooperative experiences. As a result, a few Elden Ring players have turned to invading others exclusively to "Vigor Check" them, birthing a niche online where their opponents must survive a single, brutal attack to succeed.
Elden Ring is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.