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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfYhjjpC07o My wife: why do people who play dark souls hate themselves so much?
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Jul 15, 2018 02:08
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Son of Thunderbeast posted:
Any really good session of dark souls will definitely involve at least one gamer getting mad, but it doesn't necessarily have to be the host. This guy has got a pretty good thing going, for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysVD6_xhvIs
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Jul 15, 2018 15:53
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Ulio posted:By barren do you mean visuals, level design or online activity? I played on PC SOTFS edition. I actually found a lot of people in the last DLC as well. I meant online activity. I rarely saw human players after leaving the Forest of Fallen Giants. Never got invaded by a human, but did have one bell bro at Belfry Sol. Not sure if it was a Soul Memory thing or what.
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Jul 15, 2018 16:01
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Well I finished Darklurker today which officially brings my first NG run to a close. I really enjoyed this game and am looking forward to NG+/another character/bloodborne!
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Jul 17, 2018 04:09
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If you're into self-flagellation (getting all achievements), you'll need to farm 30 Sunlight Medals in one of three fashions and probably play until NG++ Drangleic for the other four (?) covenant spells. Just going to go ahead and doubt that ANY version/platform has enough players left to farm those covenant spells the normal way. If you aren't into hitting yourself for fun and profit, the game actually has really high replay value after the rough first few runs. It's just hidden behind getting comfortable with ADP tax, ascetics, and finding a personally preferred boss order.
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Jul 17, 2018 07:33
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Fifteen of Many posted:Well I finished Darklurker today which officially brings my first NG run to a close. I really enjoyed this game and am looking forward to NG+/another character/bloodborne! The biggest reward for finishing off all bosses is the opportunity to go through NG+ powerstancing with a Loyce Greatsword in the right hand and a Majestic Greatsword in the left.
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Jul 18, 2018 02:16
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Man if it wasn't for the small white soapstone I'd have bounced off this game by now, at least for a while. The Ruin Sentinels aren't that bad, but combined with the way death and humanity works in this game, as well as the fact that enemies die off for good after a while, just ugh. Also I was super pissed the other day because I finally had my first invasion but my circuit breaker chose that exact moment to trip 
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Jul 18, 2018 02:46
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Son of Thunderbeast posted:Man if it wasn't for the small white soapstone I'd have bounced off this game by now, at least for a while. The Ruin Sentinels aren't that bad, but combined with the way death and humanity works in this game, as well as the fact that enemies die off for good after a while, just ugh. DS2 (vanilla) was my first Souls game and the Ruin Sentinels were a god dang concrete wall I smashed through. I must've spent 4 hours trying over and over, and yeah the slow health reduction doesn't help if you're stuck on a hard boss, though it's actually more forgiving than DS3, where being human - "embered" in that game - gives you a full 30% health boost. You start DS3 non-embered, though, so the slow penalty in DS2 is much more demoralizing than losing DS3's large bonus. Anyway Ruin Sentinels are a great boss and I really enjoyed beating the poo poo out of them in one try when I went back to Scholar after having played DS1-3 and Bloodborne: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jM8UmPXtCGs
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Jul 18, 2018 07:09
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Son of Thunderbeast posted:Man if it wasn't for the small white soapstone I'd have bounced off this game by now, at least for a while. The Ruin Sentinels aren't that bad, but combined with the way death and humanity works in this game, as well as the fact that enemies die off for good after a while, just ugh. It just shortens your boss run and if you really need to farm you can bring them back
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Jul 18, 2018 08:17
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Just quit Dark Souls 2 early for the night because if memory serves, after finishing Earthen Peak I'm preeeeeetty sure my two choices forward are: 1) the invisible forest of assholery 2) down the well into poison town And I can't be hosed dealing with either of those holiday destinations tonight.
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Jul 18, 2018 14:20
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Loten posted:Just quit Dark Souls 2 early for the night because if memory serves, after finishing Earthen Peak I'm preeeeeetty sure my two choices forward are:
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Jul 18, 2018 14:26
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Amppelix posted:Wait, where's the bad part for enemies dying permanently I finally tried using the small white soapstone in the Cardinal Tower to at least break the monotony of that bullshit, and discovered that fulfilling my duty restores my humanity. That did a LOT to bring me back from the brink of quitting, because the convergence of the death/humanity/enemy respawning mechanics were making the game extremely not fun. Mahlertov Cocktail posted:Anyway Ruin Sentinels are a great boss and I really enjoyed beating the poo poo out of them in one try when I went back to Scholar after having played DS1-3 and Bloodborne:
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Jul 18, 2018 16:40
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You can bring them back with a bonfire ascetic, but then they’re at NG+ levels of HP and damage.
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Jul 18, 2018 17:02
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You can also bring extinct enemies back by joining the Covenant of Champions. Just be aware they'll be a tad harder. Though on the other hand they won't disappear as long as you're in CoC.
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Jul 18, 2018 17:16
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I would say that soul farming to gain levels is very very rarely actually productive and will usually have a placebo effect at best. If you feel like your obstacle is impassable and you need to farm, go somewhere else instead. DS2 is pretty open.
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Jul 18, 2018 17:29
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You can also get the Ring of Binding from Heide's Tower of Flame which caps the HP reduction at 80% instead of 50%.
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Jul 18, 2018 18:19
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Son of Thunderbeast posted:And the poo poo thing is, I've got the Ruin Sentinels' number, I know their patterns and poo poo, I just can't take more than one hit without dying. How much HP do you have at full health? How many levels in Vit do you have?
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Jul 18, 2018 18:43
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Paracelsus posted:How much HP do you have at full health? How many levels in Vit do you have? I don't remember my max HP, but I picked swordsman and my VIT is 5 e: wearing leather armor, dual wielding +1 mail breaker and +1 rapier
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Jul 18, 2018 18:47
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Son of Thunderbeast posted:I don't remember my max HP, but I picked swordsman and my VIT is 5 What's your vigor? That's the stat that's actually tied to HP in DS2.
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Jul 18, 2018 18:48
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King of Solomon posted:What's your vigor? That's the stat that's actually tied to HP in DS2. k then that's the one that's 5
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Jul 18, 2018 18:48
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what the hell are you doing with your life (literally) I think for once I'll agree that farming might be the answer
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Jul 18, 2018 18:51
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swordsman starter is pretty rough unless you're somewhat experienced, you're expected to dodge pretty much everything
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Jul 18, 2018 19:02
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Simply Simon posted:what the hell are you doing with your life (literally) CYBEReris posted:swordsman starter is pretty rough unless you're somewhat experienced, you're expected to dodge pretty much everything 
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Jul 18, 2018 19:11
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Son of Thunderbeast posted:I don't remember my max HP, but I picked swordsman and my VIT is 5 I think you just explained where your problems lie. Go explore FoFG for some shards or just buy some from Lenigrast, he's got 10 for sale. Put at least a few points into HP, getting to at least 10 should be a top priority for any character below that. Or get the key to the locked house in Majula from Cale the Cartographer in FoFG and pick up the Soul Vessel in the basement so you can reallocate your stats with the old ladies.
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Jul 18, 2018 19:13
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Thanks! I figured something had to be off about my build. Now that it's confirmed I'll do those things you recommended. edit: this is probably gonna make for a drastic change in my Ruin Sentinels video lol. At least I hope it does.
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Jul 18, 2018 19:34
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I get where you're coming from, I used to think HP is a dumpstat as well because "you're supposed to dodge everything anyway", and I also never quiiite upgraded my weapons well enough because "what if I find a more interesting one just around the corner and then I'm out of materials and grinding sucks". However, 5 Vigor is really low, and there's a reason for why most stats exist  . I had a huge revelation in my mindset though when after having played through DS2, I got two friends one after the other into it and both of them were just coasting through the game, and I was like "holy poo poo this boss used to kick my poo poo in, how are you already past that area?" and he was like "what's your problem, I hit him a bunch, dodged a bunch and he died  " and finally I found out that he had like 40 Vigor and a +10 Katana because he had decided that he wanted to play a Katana dude this run and just used the first one he found. While I was there with literally half the health and a +6 weapon because I don't have thaaaaat many Chuuuunks.Basically, don't be me, get some health, it's good for you. It just allows you more margin for error. The difference between survive one hit -> panic roll -> get hit again, dead and get hit again, NOT dead, get away, calm down, heal is gigantic. And that can be just two or three levels of Vigor. Going from being able to tank only one hit to three is enormous and does wonders for your confidence as well, because you don't have to back off and heal all the time or play suuuper cautiously always.
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Jul 18, 2018 19:42
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Son of Thunderbeast posted:Thanks! I figured something had to be off about my build. Now that it's confirmed I'll do those things you recommended. For reference, by the time I hit Ruin Sentinels I'd expect to have at least a +6 weapon because there's tons of large shards lying around the Bastille and MacDuff sells infinite large shards. The fight is a lot easier if you can kill the first sentinel on the ledge before the second one arrives, and the second before the third. People like to hype pumping ADP for iframes early but, while you want to hit the first breakpoint of 86 agl early on (swordsman starts with 86, I think), for a novice player you'll get a much quicker return on survivability from getting more HP. Better iframes don't do you all that much good if you still haven't gotten the hang of dodging yet, and messing up your dodges means you take more damage than if you'd just tanked the hit, so early ADP pushes can actually mean you die more often.
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Jul 18, 2018 20:06
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Good to know! I pumped my ADP to 96 lol edit: this is wrong, I pumped my ADP until my AGI was 96, holy crap lol Basically I put all my points into STR, DEX, or ADP. Other than that, 5 points into END so far. And thanks for the tips SS, that's basically the mindset I've been playing with. Time to change that lol Son of Thunderbeast fucked around with this message at 20:56 on Jul 18, 2018 |
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Jul 18, 2018 20:10
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Generally in the early game in any Soulsborne it's a good idea to start with HP and Stamina. Only invest as much into str or dex so you can equip the weapons you want and when you're able to get them into about mid-tier upgrade range is when pumping the stats starts paying off iirc. Survivability is way more important early on than the negligible damage returns. Also since this is DS2 ADP tax is a thing, but levels also come really fast so it's not that bad.
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Jul 18, 2018 21:07
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Unless I'm specifically speccing towards using a weapon, I go 20 STR 20 DEX 15 ADP and then I start pumping points in VIT and VIG. A good stopping point I find is about 1000hp, it's enough HP that you can get hit in the face and keep going but it's not enough that you've dumped 25 levels into it and now you're at the Rotten doing 50dmg because you can only use a broadsword. I'm big on VIT because I wear heavy armor and really like UGS's, if you're running a kitana man build/dex build, VIT is basically useless.
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Jul 18, 2018 21:29
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Son of Thunderbeast posted:How do I bring them back? Cuz yeah it's about the farming. Honestly the best way to get souls is to put your summon down and help with bosses. Generally you shouldn't need to farm souls, however, you just went from the Forrest of Giants to the Lost Bastille right? That path is a bit hardcore... You might wanna revisit the Tower of Flame and see where that leads. And watching your vids, my general battle tip is to dodge towards enemies.
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Jul 18, 2018 21:57
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The strategy I used in Dark Souls 2 was to keep traveling between different paths. There's five ways to go at first (though one of them is locked until you complete Heide's, one is locked behind finding an item, and one is soft-locked behind a difficult fall) and while some of them are harder than others, they're roughly gated so that you'll wind up going through the easier areas first. The way I played it was that I kept on switching areas. So after Forest of Fallen Giants, I went and took a swing at Heide's Tower of Flame and found that it wasn't too difficult. (The stone knights are really intimidating, but aside from one encounter, it's really easy to fight them one-on-one and dodge, or just to run past them.) I feel like the fact that enemies despawn is part of the game trying to push you to try new things and explore new areas. My first playthrough of the game I think I only really wound up farming once, and that was near the end when I was paying a Human Effigy tax to try an optional covenant. There's no one way forward in Dark Souls 2, because there's almost always some other place to go and make progress.
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Jul 18, 2018 22:43
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Also, you mentioned dual-wielding rapiers, you are powerstancing, right? (I mean, I figure you probably are, but it's something even I'd forget sometimes when I was doing my powerstance build.)
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Jul 18, 2018 22:49
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As a general rule in souls games, the most important thing you can do to make yourself stronger is upgrading your weapon. Always use the most fully upgraded weapon you can. Upgrade materials are never rare enough that you can’t switch to something else later if you find it and the returns on damage from upgrading your weapon are much larger than from investing in damage stats. It’s typically safe to leave those low until you have good hp, stamina and agility. What are your damage stats, by the way? Is there a specific weapon you’re going for? You mentioned two rapiers, but also leveling strength. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with that, but the rapier is one of the most powerful weapons in the game and gains nothing from strength. How’s your stamina? That’s about as important as health, maybe more so if you’re dual wielding. Edit: never mind, I saw you put 5 in there. This should be your next priority after getting more HP. Regarding equip load, there’s a slightly spoilery reason it’s much better to stay low on certain characters (like rapier users). If you’re not using a really heavy weapon or shield, or haven’t already decided you want the heaviest possible armor, don’t go 10-14 in vitality. Of course, you can always just respec when you reach the spoilery reason. Heithinn Grasida fucked around with this message at 03:03 on Jul 19, 2018 |
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Jul 19, 2018 03:00
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Djeser posted:Also, you mentioned dual-wielding rapiers, you are powerstancing, right? (I mean, I figure you probably are, but it's something even I'd forget sometimes when I was doing my powerstance build.) Heithinn Grasida posted:As a general rule in souls games, the most important thing you can do to make yourself stronger is upgrading your weapon. Always use the most fully upgraded weapon you can. Upgrade materials are never rare enough that you can’t switch to something else later if you find it and the returns on damage from upgrading your weapon are much larger than from investing in damage stats. It’s typically safe to leave those low until you have good hp, stamina and agility. And I'll try to stay low on equip load but I like fastrolling in the Favored set in DS1 (pumped END + FAP ring + HAvel ring) and I'd love to do something similar, eventually, in DS2. Though pumping Update: I spent a couple hours farming the starting area of Heide's, found the Ring of Binding, white phantomed for Pursuer a couple times (learned that I can get hit by the ballistae, what a ripoff, thank u dark souls). Feeling better about my build. My rapier is +3 now too. Here's my character sheet so far:  Rings are Binding, Blades, Covetous Silver, Restoration. Leather chest/boots, Royal Swordsman gloves, Heide Knight Greathelm. edit: should I swap out my Mail Breaker for another Rapier? Son of Thunderbeast fucked around with this message at 03:45 on Jul 19, 2018 |
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Jul 19, 2018 03:35
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Restoration Ring is too slow to do anything in this game. Swap a rapier in unless you're really committed to the mail breaker, it's got longer range. Don't dual-wield halberds; it's definitely a late NG or NG+ thing.
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Jul 19, 2018 03:59
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The mailbreaker is really low on damage, so probably. If you want a more versatile moveset, try putting a scimitar, falchion or short sword in your off hand. I find that goes really well with a rapier, since it gives you horizontal slashes with both weapons. Also, you might already be aware, the roll mechanics are different in this one. Equip load doesn't influence iframes on your roll, only roll distance. Lighter equip load also gives you faster stamina regeneration. If you use light weapons, you can typically wear medium armor without much investment in vitality. Vitality investment is really more important if you want a heavy weapon and thick armor. Heithinn Grasida fucked around with this message at 04:07 on Jul 19, 2018 |
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Jul 19, 2018 04:02
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Heithinn Grasida posted:The mailbreaker is really low on damage, so probably. If you want a more versatile moveset, try putting a scimitar, falchion or short sword in your off hand. I find that goes really well with a rapier, since it gives you horizontal slashes with both weapons. The mail breaker is a great secondary main-hand weapon, as it weighs almost nothing and gets high counter damage. It's more strength focused, though. Can confirm that the rapier/falchion combo is an absolute blast. Son of Thunderbeast posted:No specific weapon I'm going for or have in mind because I don't know what there is. The idea of dual-wielding halberds makes me hard, but if that's best left for NG+ lemme know lol. I'm down to dual-wield rapiers the whole way but I want to try dual-wielding as many things as I can. Part of why I'm leveling STR is to try powerstancing these maces/morningstars I picked up. Powerstancing halberds will likely disappoint; it's just an overhead chop with both of them on both L1 and L2. Powerstancing maces is effective but boring IMO. If you are going to stick with a rapier, you'll want to beat the secondary boss of Heide's. How many estus flask shards have you found?
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Jul 19, 2018 04:43
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Bogart posted:Restoration Ring is too slow to do anything in this game. Swap a rapier in unless you're really committed to the mail breaker, it's got longer range. Don't dual-wield halberds; it's definitely a late NG or NG+ thing. Heithinn Grasida posted:The mailbreaker is really low on damage, so probably. If you want a more versatile moveset, try putting a scimitar, falchion or short sword in your off hand. I find that goes really well with a rapier, since it gives you horizontal slashes with both weapons.  I thought the weapons had to be the same type or at least have matching damage types, but your post prompted me to look up powerstancing in the wiki and I found a whole matrix of weapon combos that work! This opens up a whole new world to experiment with, thanks  And thanks for the equip load tips, I didn't realize the differences. so far the only difference I've noticed is that either I got way better at timing my rolls since DS1, or DS2 has more iframes, or maybe moves are easier to read in DS2, because I'm successfully dodging attacks WAY more often than I ever did in the first one.Paracelsus posted:If you are going to stick with a rapier, you'll want to beat the secondary boss of Heide's.
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Jul 19, 2018 15:13
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This talk is really making me want to run DS2 again. I’ve never actually used a rapier in that game despite knowing that it’s one of the strongest weapons. Maybe next week I’ll do that, though I want to continue my SL1/BL4 runs in DS3 and Bloodborne. Decisions, decisions...
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Jul 20, 2018 10:58
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