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John Murdoch posted:Aldia's Keep
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Oct 7, 2020 04:42
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I started laughing maniacally. Then he backed up and it attacked, breaking the cage holding yet another one and I laughed even harder.
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| # ? May 11, 2024 18:05 |
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Gobblecoque posted:My trick to the +purgatory phantom was to lure him a few steps away from the fog gate, bait him into attacking, and then running to the boss since his weapon is big and slow. Any other playthrough I don't think I'd have had too much trouble with him but he's got enough armor to just tank my dual-caestus punchman even with the stone ring. I've since upgraded to the bone fist which would've done the trick but ah well. I'm currently playing an item randomizer run and it gave me the bone fist immediately and it's rad as hell 45 dex to powerstance with a caestus is rough though lol
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Oct 7, 2020 04:50
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The Joe Man posted:Does anyone know what's in that first carriage when you get to the main hallway? It keeps rockin' and I wanna come knockin' but I don't think I ever managed to get an ogre over there. The carriages have basilisks in them. I think it gets broken when the dragon skull comes alive?
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Oct 7, 2020 04:56
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Chalupa Joe posted:The carriages have basilisks in them. I think it gets broken when the dragon skull comes alive? The one in main hall will, but not the first one by where the invader spawns. Maybe you could lure an ogre down there and have him break it?
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Oct 7, 2020 05:10
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SHISHKABOB posted:Despite my hatred for the ogres and their bullshit hitboxes, my favorite gently caress moment in dark souls was when the 2nd ogre bursts through the wall at the end of Aldia's keep. I loved that part. I felt so smug when I figured out that the first one was going to break through the door. After dispatching him, I cockily sauntered over to the second door and promptly got my poo poo smashed in. It was a fantastic comeuppance.
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Oct 7, 2020 05:17
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skasion posted:The one in main hall will, but not the first one by where the invader spawns. Maybe you could lure an ogre down there and have him break it?
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Oct 7, 2020 05:44
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Wow this dark chasm stuff sucks haha
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Oct 8, 2020 16:33
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The one in the Gutter is hard, but cheesing with poison arrows is a useful strat in the other ones.
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Oct 8, 2020 18:13
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Get a weapon that can pancake NPCs and abuse the poo poo out of it
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Oct 8, 2020 18:20
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skasion posted:Get a weapon that can pancake NPCs and abuse the poo poo out of it Yess  I used a zweihander and a gyrm greatshield.
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Oct 8, 2020 20:38
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I've been taking a few days' break due to feeling like garbo but I decided to dip my toes back in by doing some dirty, dirty farming. I wanted my Demon Greathammer, damnit.  Turns out you can make a pretty silly amount of profit from the dead simple process of farming the Army Camp boars + the one dude who decides he wants a piece most of the time. It took a very stupid number of smooth stones to get those dumb crows to cough up the goods (and before you say "you should use Petrified Somethings instead" I ended up with multitudes of Old Whips and Channeler's Tridents throughout this process, so I'm gonna chalk it up to bad luck). But by the time they did, I had also gotten enough twinklers to bump that sucker up to +4. Wish I could cap it off and be done with it, but alas, still a few short for now. With my very nice new weapon in hand I decided to push forward a bit. Harvest Valley is...a pretty staggering bunch of nothing. Sure the poison gas is annoying, but I had built the area up in my head as being this endless underground labyrinth of poison and uh nnnnnope. Triggering that "Welcome to Earthen Peak" point is a real wait, what? moment. Earthen Peak itself was fun tho, if straightforward. At that point I decided to hit pause on Iron Keep and clean up some loose ends. Step one: Get the Engraved Gauntlets and Creighton's gear. Step two: Feel intense disappointment that the gauntlets need 12 Dex to wear. After that I wanted to map out the Pit (with Gilligan's help, natch) - grab the items, the Grave of Saints bonfire, and also the Gutter one. The Gutter ended giving me some pains as I kept falling in inconvenient ways before reaching the first bonfire. First few times it was straight into the abyss (or being shoved there by one the exploding assholes, now there's a mean enemy spawn). And of course falling down into the alternate loop through the weak floor. But all that said...I actually really enjoyed the area! In terms of combat it's nothing much, but the actual navigation is fun without being absolute torture. I much prefer it to upper Blighttown. I mean, considering my original intent was to hop down, grab the bonfire, and then leave again I'd say it succeeded at hooking me in. My only complaint is that if you go the wrong way around to the second bonfire, it's difficult to the find the weak wall you need to break to proceed forward. Not a fan of the poison statute gimmick, but at least it's used creatively in the Gutter. And then immediately run into loving ground in Black Gulch.  Backed out before committing to the boss, but I got everything else sorted - Lucatiel, the second bonfire, and most importantly the giant room. Which means it's time to Havel. I'll prolly go knock out the Rotten first thing next time I play, grab the Shulva bonfire, then swing back to Iron Keep.
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Oct 11, 2020 03:49
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I'm glad you enjoyed the Pit, I too enjoy it. Lighting all the torches is so satisfying. I've never enjoyed the poison statues but they're just annoying.
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Oct 11, 2020 05:32
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I liked the Gutter. There was something real foreboding about dropping in there and being met with just darkness.
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Oct 11, 2020 11:05
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I personally think the Gutter has a lot more personality if you remember that the hole in Majula was straight up a Hollow Disposal Chute. It looks way more lived in (do people just sit in poison in Blighttown?), and its vertical structure evokes a feeling that the poor dudes dropped in there survived and while certainly not thrived, they remembered enough to want to build a structure that reaches up to the light again. A shambling mess of a structure, with no coordination on the matter, but that just makes it more organic
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Oct 11, 2020 12:06
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the gutter was cool because i didn’t realize those were torches until i was like 80% of the way through it
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Oct 11, 2020 14:20
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the gutter is cool because it reminds me of those big wooden playground forts at the park i used to play on as a kid
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Oct 11, 2020 16:33
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goblin week posted:I personally think the Gutter has a lot more personality if you remember that the hole in Majula was straight up a Hollow Disposal Chute. It looks way more lived in (do people just sit in poison in Blighttown?), and its vertical structure evokes a feeling that the poor dudes dropped in there survived and while certainly not thrived, they remembered enough to want to build a structure that reaches up to the light again. A shambling mess of a structure, with no coordination on the matter, but that just makes it more organic Yeah to steal the words straight from Hbomberguy's DS2 video, one of the first things you (likely) do in The Gutter is fall through the roof of an actually furnished makeshift house full of hollows. Despite everything most of these people are still clinging on to some semblance of existence. In general the way that hollows are seen as burdensome refuse, either being locked away in prisons (the Asylum in 1, Lost Bastille in 2) for the rest of time or being thrown down a communal garbage pit, is one of the most direct and effective pieces of storytelling in the games IMO. And all the more effective in 2 with Lucatiel's dread at slowly going hollow and of course the big reveal of Vendrick. John Murdoch fucked around with this message at 18:58 on Oct 11, 2020 |
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Oct 11, 2020 18:47
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I beat my Dark Souls 2 item randomizer run! Turns out getting the ice rapier and the bone fist early breaks the difficulty in half (mostly).  Something that always amuses me about the Deep Lore in DS2 is how almost no one in the playerbase could figure out what the "prize" Vendrick stole from the Giants was or what the Giant's Kinship item is. He raided and enslaved them, almost every item you get related to Aldia is about the horrible experiments he's performing on the captives, giants included. The Kinship is a metaphorical thing, your character understands them and their lingering eternal hatred for Drangleic now. I appreciate how understated it is that Vendrick himself was old as hell even before hollowing though. e: omg this is the original ds2 thread i posted way too much lol RBA Starblade fucked around with this message at 21:40 on Oct 11, 2020 |
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Oct 11, 2020 21:04
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I always assumed the Giant’s Kinship is something similar to the Dark Soul: both the essence of being, shared by every giant and also a real, semi-physical thing extracted through slaughter and cruelty. It also seems to be inexorably linked to the Throne of Want, in the same way humans’ shared dark soul is connected to the first flame.
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Oct 11, 2020 22:01
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With better armor and weaponry in tow I decided it was time for the +2 Cloranthy ring. The run up was much, much nicer this time. The actual fight was a messy clusterfuck but not even due to the skellies/necromancers. While I was sloppy there a +4 Demon's Great Hammer wipes the floor with them. (I'm even tough enough now that getting swiped by the chariot only does 90% of health.) No, it was entirely down to getting greedy against the horse and almost dying over and over. Also I learned that it can curve the bullet with its darkness blasts and they can sneak over its shoulder and into your face. < > Regardless, the ring is mine now and I don't have to worry about it anymore.  Edit: Oh, right. I also went and crushed the Royal Rat Vanguard which went so hilariously well that I literally forgot I even did it. Outside of his higher than average blunt damage resistance The Rotten was a complete nothing. I don't think I actually took any damage from him the whole fight. Iron Keep ended up being a bit of a joke too. One solid hit and everything there dies instantly (bonus: free Twinkling Titanite to get my hammer to +5 and really seal the deal) . I dig the area design overall but the Belfry bonfire is just duuuuumb. Smelter Demon was above average in terms of difficulty, but I'm at the point where missing his timings means I lose like 40% health tops and Lucatiel had my back besides. Old Iron King is a pushover but I did die to him once - I knew about the hidey ledge by the exit, but I did not realize if you don't immediately leave it after his fire breath he gets mad and fucks you with even more fire and lasers and fire lasers. (Additionally I couldn't find the stupid ladder in the fire turret room so I had a longer run back to deal with.) Hardest enemy in the entire area for me was the drat Pursuer. I apparently still can't reliably deal with his poo poo. It's gotta be a heavy equip burden thing giving me a shorter roll? Either that or I'm unknowingly dodging in all the wrong directions. I've been at 100 AGL for ages now so it's not that. I skipped every last bit of lava loot. Looking it up I'm pretty sure there's not a single thing I care about and while I know about the water thing it seemed unnecessarily risky to gently caress with it (wish there was a buff icon for it at the very least). I did try it once at the start with the water pots above Magerold and the loot by the bonfire but I'm guessing it's too far away or I'm just too slow so it didn't work. (Also speaking of him, it's also very silly to have to go through all sorts of precarious nonsense to get the Gold Serpent Ring ooooorrr you can just buy the Jester set from him + like one other item and he'll give you the +1 immediately.) The actual hardest challenge this session was those loving salamanders. Holy poo poo what an awfully designed enemy. And an awfully designed area too for that matter. The final oof was trudging all the way to Drangleic Castle then getting stomped by the elephants and having to trudge aaaaaall the way back from the crossroads bonfire. But I made to the next bonfire and I'm ready to go for next time. (Also grabbed all 3 DLC starting bonfires along the way of all this.)
John Murdoch fucked around with this message at 01:31 on Oct 12, 2020 |
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Oct 12, 2020 01:07
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The gutter is cool because it means that Henneikens and car tires canonically exist in Drangleic
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Oct 12, 2020 02:25
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Giant's Kinship actually just a translation error of "Giant Kingship" as in you are now a very large monarch just like Vendrick 
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Oct 12, 2020 04:28
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Holy drat been stuck at Fume Knight for a while (first play through of this dlc.) But I'm noticing it isn't as impossible as it once seemed -- I can now more easily get to the second half of the fight (when he gets the flame sword.) By the way, is multiplayer in this game dead on PC? It used to be the case that on Saturday mornings you could go the bell-tower (the area through the Servant's Room in Lost Bastile) and immediately get invaded.
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Oct 12, 2020 08:06
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IbrahimSom posted:Holy drat been stuck at Fume Knight for a while (first play through of this dlc.) But I'm noticing it isn't as impossible as it once seemed -- I can now more easily get to the second half of the fight (when he gets the flame sword.)
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Oct 12, 2020 08:52
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IbrahimSom posted:Holy drat been stuck at Fume Knight for a while (first play through of this dlc.) But I'm noticing it isn't as impossible as it once seemed -- I can now more easily get to the second half of the fight (when he gets the flame sword.) NGDBSS posted:[Phase 2 has] the following four attacks:
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Oct 12, 2020 09:28
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The Joe Man posted:Scholar edition was about 99% dead when I played through it around a year ago (but I played late at night after work too). If you're playing the original base game + DLC it will absolutely be 100% dead. I've actually regularly seen people coming and going at bonfires and the occasional ghost on OG DS2, far more than I would ever expect to between its age and SOTFS existing. But still zero luck with actual online play. Gonna guess that between the ease of randomly eating poo poo and losing humanity (and soldiering on with the cling ring instead of bothering to waste an effigy), people's weird hang-ups about co-op, and my increasingly bloated soul memory I'm not gonna be seeing any action. Just as another data point, DS2 actually still has a pretty healthy stream scene on Twitch. Nowhere near the number of streams as 1 or 3, mind you, but on a good day there's a solid 10-20 going. (Though Twitch also changed its game database recently so there's no longer a hard split between OG and SOTFS so half the time I can only tell which version is being played by obvious Scholar changes.) Hell, once in a blue moon somebody's actually doing an invasion stream. But I'm guessing not a single soul is, say, bothering with guarding the bells anymore.
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Oct 12, 2020 15:05
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It's weird how empty and different Souls games feel offline. DS2 in particular, with how intertwined multiplayer is with everything. The Iron Bridge and empty belltowers were sad to see.
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Oct 12, 2020 15:07
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While actual player interaction is innately way more fun, I very much appreciate how they put in a fair few NPC summons and invaders to ensure you can still get a taste of the online. Though the offline-only invaders in 2 are a strange choice.
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Oct 12, 2020 15:11
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i like npc summons because i don’t have to worry about wasting another player’s time by being bad at the game
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Oct 12, 2020 15:25
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I got invaded the other day actually. I promptly got owned
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Oct 12, 2020 18:07
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During my playthrough I got summoned around the clock to help with bosses and such but got invaded (by actual players) exactly 0 times, even in the belltowers.
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Oct 12, 2020 19:41
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The pool of invasion victims in DS2 is too big (because it’s opt-out rather than opt-in like the other games) and they never fixed this, and probably didn’t even think of it as something to be fixed. If you can be bothered to farm up the orbs you can still do a decent number of invasions in the game even nowadays, but actually being invaded will happen once or twice a playthrough unless you specially go looking for it. And this is not a giant decrease from when the game was at its height either, red invaders were always quite rare. It was much more common to get blue cops back in the day since that was an opt-in, hence a smaller pool of potential targets for the invaders. I haven’t seen any the last couple years though. Belfry Luna actually used to be an alternative to this since it was so easy to get to early. you’d basically get a constant parade of invaders there for anything under SL100. But since it’s harder and less desirable to get to in SOTFS it’s pretty dry nowadays too. As with reds, you can do invasions there with tolerable frequency if you want, but regularly getting invaded there was dependent on a large playerbase which has since moved on.
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Oct 12, 2020 20:10
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The one time I set myself up to get to "immediately invade" status by cops I instantly regretted it. Every five feet from a bonfire lmao
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Oct 12, 2020 20:25
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I'm back at it!!! Drangleic Castle was....okay, I guess. Hilariously by sheer luck the first two soul doors I opened in the basement were the two most important ones (not that I didn't clear it all out anyway). The rest of the journey was entirely unremarkable. The Dragonriders were largely a joke. Looking Glass Knight spent most of the fight wailing on Benhart, which didn't make things as easy as you'd think because his shield is big enough to block attacks from behind. He still died too quick to really do anything, though. Honestly the area feels borderline unfinished. So many doors that don't open. And those archers stranded on that rooftop... Hoo boy. Shrine of loving Amana on the other hand. What a pile of poo poo. I've actually really enjoyed my time in Drangleic because even if things can be a little shaky sometimes overall the game has been way more solid than its reputation implies. Shrine, on the other hand, is clearly an area that received zero playtesting and acts as a completely out of nowhere difficulty bottleneck. Like I know Looking Glass Knight can be a bit of a wall for some folks and it's not like Velstadt coming up is going to be a complete pushover either, but there's no way either of them can ever be as bullshit as Shrine. The fact that they give you an NPC summon in the middle of the area rather than right before the boss already says a lot. I don't mind the initial gimmick with the undead swamp boglins and the singing and them being riled by a torch but you need the torchlight to help navigate stuff. It's fine. (I died to falling into the deep water exactly zero times.) And I don't even mind the added wrinkle of the casters spamming spells at you because honestly if you just avoid panicking you can sidestep like 90% of their casts. The gank squad is what really pissed me off. The clerics are relentless while you're stuck trudging through water and will easily touch of death stun lock you into oblivion. The normal maidens are doing their usual magic spam. And then of course you have that passive maiden who I guess buffs the others so they can randomly just 1-2 shot you out of nowhere? Bullshit. And after all that...the loving beetle cave. For the first time in my entire playthrough I felt the need to kill an enemy spawn to extinction because there's just gently caress all I could do to reliably kill the giant corrosive beetle without breaking at least a ring in the process. Complete garbage design. They don't even have anything to do with anything. They feel like they solely exist to try and hobble you right before the boss, as if the rest of the area wasn't already a nightmare gauntlet. And the final cherry on top, you have Demon of Song who isn't the hardest boss by any stretch but is a really tedious and overtuned pattern boss who could knock my head clean off in one attack through heavy armor. Unsurprisingly, outside of a few dodgy hitboxes (so glad a boss gets a salamander-esque "I'm going to go over here now and if you're anywhere in the same room as me you're probably eating poo poo" attack) once I understood the pattern it was a total non-issue. By comparison, I cleared out Undead Crypt in what felt like 10 minutes. It wasn't a total cakewalk, but it wasn't Shrine of Amana. Up next is Velstadt. And quite probably farming a giant pile of twinklers from...oh, right, Shrine. At least I can gank the gank squad from behind now...
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Oct 23, 2020 07:37
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The giant rust beetle is very much a shouted YOU HAVE A BOW BY NOW, RIGHT? question
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Oct 23, 2020 07:54
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Bows are actually good and useful in DS2. In DS3 it feels like they are only useful for kiting around enemies and plinking the High Wall wywern.
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Oct 23, 2020 07:59
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Simply Simon posted:The giant rust beetle is very much a shouted YOU HAVE A BOW BY NOW, RIGHT? question ...And not the giant open area full of mages sniping at you immediately preceding it?
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Oct 23, 2020 07:59
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John Murdoch posted:...And not the giant open area full of mages sniping at you immediately preceding it?
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Oct 23, 2020 08:04
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I mean, my problem is also not really "this enemy is bad if you refuse to use ranged attacks" - obviously I made the rest of Shrine harder on myself but it was fun up to a point - and more that it's all of five feet away from a bonfire so it both carries minimal risk and is also the first thing you have to deal with after respawning. Even if I bothered to switch to a bow or threw some firebombs it'd still be an annoying literal roadblock draining my resources.
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Oct 23, 2020 08:14
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| # ? May 11, 2024 18:05 |
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I fully agree with that, it's mostly just annoying. Also you're right that the final encounter before that bonfire is uncharacteristically super dickish
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Oct 23, 2020 09:01
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