So I was wrong, I thought it would be year before I played this again, but it was like less than 1. Did a cestus/spiked star fist build with bloodhound step on cestus/Hoarah Loux's Earthshaker on the star fist. It was kind of cool how I actually got to mess with ashes of war since I couldn't with the Great Club. Didn't experiment too much with it cause I knew I wanted the bloodhound step for fun dodging. The Earthshaker is a crazy ass ash of war though, just a AOE that does huge stagger and good damage. Cestus was pretty fun, I like that heavy attacks will pretty much stagger most human-sized enemies so it was fun to just keep jabbing enemies to interrupt them. Had problems with larger sized enemies compared to Great Club so it wasn't strictly better, cause I did just skip a lot of shit.

Ran through every dungeon and I'm pretty sure I fought every boss that wasn't a map boss, and it took me 40 hours less than my first playthrough. Still have the same problems with Elden Ring that I think the bosses do too much. I summoned for a lot of the main bosses, or used mimic tear almost every time once I got it, makes all the bosses feel forgettable, but I know I would despise fighting them solo; or they are just nothing jobbers that I just want to brush by them quick. I honestly tried to solo Malenia this time, and the Cestus did fuck her up with the stagger; almost fucking got her first try except for a mistake, then it was endless spiral of me remembering why I hate her and Elden Ring bosses and summoned mimic. Last boss sucks ass too.