After beating Malenia with 62 different builds to manifest DLC, this Elden Ring player can finally retire

gamesradar.com:

The long-awaited Elden Ring DLC Shadow of the Erdtree has finally been announced, and on top of sending the game's hungry community into a frenzy, the news brought bittersweet relief to a player who'd been fighting Malenia with a different build "every week til DLC news." 

Community legend JPNB started a YouTube series on May 7, 2022. "Beating Malenia with a different build everyday until DLC is announced" has evolved slightly over time, with a few mods and other bosses coming into play in some installments, not to mention episodes becoming weekly, but the core concept has remained the same: absolutely clowning on the hardest boss in Elden Ring in creative ways. 

There's a huge gap between JPNB's first video, which features a simple Rivers of Blood build, and their most recent episode, which describes a Quality and Faith build styled after an "Elden Gravelord." You've got to get creative when coming up with 62 different builds, and JPNB gets into almost D&D-style role-playing with several characters. One of my favorites is episode 32's Vampire Knight, "an Arcane/Faith/Quality build focused on... attacks that have a red colored effect." 

"To do this stuff, I keep a backup save at Rennala before I fight Malenia or other end bosses in order to easily respec," JPNB explains in their YouTube description. I'm sure Let Me Solo Her, a famous Elden Ring player known for carrying others through Malenia's fight, is proud. 

As JPNB told PC Gamer (opens in new tab), he has "a spreadsheet full of planned but never completed builds" that may never see the light of day – at least not in the same format, now that Elden Ring DLC news has indeed come. JPNB previously told Kotaku (opens in new tab) that some of his builds were based on