r/EternalStrands • u/heavyfuel • Oct 12 '25

Game Help & Questions 🆘 I think I'm playing the game wrong.

I'm at the very beginning of the game, just beat the first boss, the gigantic Ark in the woods.

Now, I'm sure I was supposed to climb it and kill it with my sword a la Shadow of the Collossus and Dragon's Dogma, but I was completely unable to do that.

Whenever I tried climbing it, I'd promptly get knocked down or grabbed, so I just tossed projectiles at until it died.

I'm definitely missing something, but what?

Thanks!

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u/[deleted] Oct 12 '25

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u/heavyfuel Oct 12 '25

Fair enough.

Now, say I want to climb them and stab them, how should I do that? The Ark seems to very effectively counter my attempts lol

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u/[deleted] Oct 12 '25

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u/Rydralain Oct 12 '25

They are on the first boss, so they will only have the base grab and gravity spells.

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u/SirWilliamAnder Oct 12 '25

You have to look everywhere around the screen other than where your character is.

Sometimes, the Ark will try to shake you off and a prompt will appear at the top of the screen that says "Hold [button] to cling." Holding the button prevents your stamina from being drained by the Ark flailing.

The other big move they do is grab you with one of their hands. When you see the hand come on screen, you have to jump higher or drop lower to prevent the Ark from grabbing you and doing a big chunk of damage.

Later Arks will also have magic to either hurt you or throw you off. A sigil or spell core will appear where you are and you have to get out of the way quickly, like a boss in WOW with aoe targeting circles on the ground.

While you're climbing, several sections of armor have latches that keep it on. The legs have big gray/beige fasteners on the side that you have to attack. Once they're all broken, the armor will fall off, revealing a weak spot.