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skasion posted:You guys are frenzied, Liurnia rules Its a great area, they just put too much stuff in it instead of spreading it out to other areas.
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May 25, 2023 06:12
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My favourites are Academy of Raya Lucaria and Volcano Manor. Stormveil felt like Demon's Souls and ruled too.
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May 25, 2023 11:56
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I don't hate Liurnia but it does feel slightly too big for how much stuff is in it. I always get a little bored traversing the central lake itself.
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May 25, 2023 12:18
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Catgirl Al Capone posted:I don't hate Liurnia but it does feel slightly too big for how much stuff is in it. I always get a little bored traversing the central lake itself. I love Liurnia, but I didn't even know the lobster snipers existed until my second character* Just didn't run into any and I'm pretty big on exploring, there's so much swamp and so many possible paths to take you'll just miss big stuff unless methodically sweeping the place. Not really a problem though, one of the things I loved about ER at launch was talking to my friend about it and finding out he had a completely different set of experiences with almost no overlap over the first 15 hours. *Probably a good thing depending on who you ask. Also didn't run into the revenant, so lucky me?
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May 25, 2023 13:26
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SHISHKABOB posted:easy to run past everything
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May 25, 2023 16:43
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Son of Thunderbeast posted:Liurnia is dark fantasy Louisiana Right down to the guy having a crawdad boil at his shack.
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May 25, 2023 18:46
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blackguard big boggart, as portrayed by wilford brimley
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May 25, 2023 18:55
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Another gripe: Grace placement feels very weird and arbitrary and it's easy to miss a good few of them. Though w/r/t there being so much stuff, I think I've come across the first "wait this area exists?" location I missed first time around. Under the northeast-ish side of the Academy and under the support struts is an entire little area. Though maybe I just forgot about it because it has nothing of note beyond crafting stuff (you better believe there's a Lily) and way too many cursed scholars or w/e those dudes are supposed to be.
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May 25, 2023 21:24
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One of Froms best design decisions is they don't care if you miss poo poo. Imagine buying Fromsoft DLC and not knowing how to kill the golem in darkroot and the other golem at seaths and then talking to an npc and being at an early game location when the story hasn't been there in hrs.
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May 26, 2023 03:39
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John Murdoch posted:Another gripe: Grace placement feels very weird and arbitrary and it's easy to miss a good few of them. I never had an issue with placement of the Sites of Grace. I did miss a couple, but they were pretty good at putting either a dungeon with one in it, or an overworld one at about the same distance from one another. So if I pulled up a map and went "Hm... there's a big gap between Sites of Grace here." I could usually run over to that empty map spot and either find one there or a dungeon. I'm not a huge open world player, but I did enjoy Elden Ring's over world for the most part. It's a bit less exciting on replays if you've thoroughly combed the map, but at that point the game transforms into a "normal" Souls game where you have a clear build objective, know what dungeons you want to hit up for weapons or spells, and can safely ignore stuff or only visit things when you've got an itch.
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May 26, 2023 16:42
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I specifically mean in Liurnia, where if you miss one it creates a pretty big dead zone where if you die it's a long, boring ride to make it back to where you were. Other areas have the benefit of a more evenly dispersed mix of locations or one or more primary hub graces. It really seems to me the sheer scale of the area gave them trouble. A fair few of the graces don't even "serve" anything in particular, they're explicitly checkpoints to help break up the huge space. But it doesn't mesh well with their missability or their otherwise arbitrary placement. Heck, even knowing from previously about the foot of the belfries grace I had a surprising bit of trouble locating the drat thing this time around because it's tucked off to the side and nestled within some plants and bushes. Sometimes the glowies just aren't good enough. And say what you will about missable stuff, but bonfires probably shouldn't be on that list. Then again, this is the DS2 thread and that was the one previous game to get inexplicably coy with its bonfire placements... John Murdoch fucked around with this message at 18:19 on May 26, 2023 |
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May 26, 2023 18:09
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John Murdoch posted:I specifically mean in Liurnia, where if you miss one it creates a pretty big dead zone where if you die it's a long, boring ride to make it back to where you were. Oh yeah, there were some times the "main path" graces in Liurnia were weirdly hard to follow, even if you were following the direction the light pointed. Maybe just too many obstancles in the way that made it hard to keep track of whether or not you were moving straight in the correct direction? John Murdoch posted:Then again, this is the DS2 thread and that was the one previous game to get inexplicably coy with its bonfire placements... DS2 does have some pretty well-hidden bonfires. I think the only one I really hard "missed" in 1 was that one in the upper levels of the Catacombs behind an illusory wall. There's those other two illusory wall bonfires in 1 (the forest door and Chaos Servant ones) but they always have a billion notes in front of them nowadays. Some of the ones in the open areas at the start of 3 are tricky, but that gets dropped as the levels become more linear.
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May 27, 2023 17:46
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In ds2 I only found the bonfire with the blacksmith because a generous invader showed it to me.
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May 27, 2023 20:46
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In my first run, I first went to Heide instead of Forest. It was rough. Particularly as I never spotted that bonfire on the right of the first platform, so I kept running back from Majula.  When I (much later) saw a streamer light that bonfire, I was like WTF?!
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May 27, 2023 21:12
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I missed the very first bonfire in Forest because it's tucked off to the side and you don't really have any reason to go over there.Nuns with Guns posted:Oh yeah, there were some times the "main path" graces in Liurnia were weirdly hard to follow, even if you were following the direction the light pointed. Maybe just too many obstancles in the way that made it hard to keep track of whether or not you were moving straight in the correct direction? With Liurnia the main path stuff probably gets short-circuited a bit by the Academy gate teleportation shenanigans. Though I'm not really sure because I've never paid close attention to the main paths, I mean all graces in Liurnia in general. I don't think anything points you (nor do you get pointed further along from) most of the random ones out on the lake. It's basically just go to Academy, go to Caria manor, go to the Grand Lift. Which covers maybe loosely 1/3 at most of the entire area. I remember first time around getting very frustrated just by the simple request of talking to Boggart because his shack isn't very far away from Rya but it's still easy to overlook. I also don't think it's on the map until you get the second map fragment, which doesn't help. I know somebody else posted in the ER thread that they had no idea Patches shows up in Liurnia; he's even got a grace right next to him. John Murdoch fucked around with this message at 21:51 on May 27, 2023 |
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May 27, 2023 21:43
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 Time to continue to remember our best girl, Lucile of Mirrah, but this time in Lothric.
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May 28, 2023 22:03
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giZm posted:
You... you look familiar...
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May 28, 2023 22:28
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heard u like girls posted:You... you look familiar...  Helo!
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May 28, 2023 23:06
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jp_l26UmYI
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Jun 11, 2023 14:44
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Hello, thread! I just totally binged the poo poo out of DS:R after a decade of pointedly ignoring the series, and enjoyed myself thoroughly. Played it through totally unspoilered, missed a ton of content, and gonna fly on in to the next one since it's recommended. It's currently downloading and I'm stoked! Looking for newbie tips (I see the spoilers in the OP, will check them when stuck), particularly regarding what I should build towards: I played the most boring, cowardly, shield + heavy armour dude, which was good fun but I'd like something a bit more... interactive? Maybe a dex build for flashier sword swooshing instead of slow pokes, maybe a hybrid who buffs themselves with faith, sticking with mid armour and hopefully not relying too heavily on parries since I'm awful with those? Is that a real build I can do organically without having to look poo poo up? Thanks in advance!
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Jun 27, 2023 13:56
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Make sure you pay the adaptability tax (put like 10-20 points into adaptability early on) Also bows are good in this one. Not like, 1st time playing build good, mind you.
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Jun 27, 2023 14:21
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Serephina posted:Hello, thread! I just totally binged the poo poo out of DS:R after a decade of pointedly ignoring the series, and enjoyed myself thoroughly. Played it through totally unspoilered, missed a ton of content, and gonna fly on in to the next one since it's recommended. It's currently downloading and I'm stoked! The major newbie tip to be aware of is that you absolutely should not ignore Adaptability. Unlike resistance in DS1, that stat is critical to any build, but especially to builds that intend to do a lot of rolling. It impacts a substat called Agility, which impacts the number of invincibility frames your roll will have. It also noticeably impacts the speed at which you use your flask. I think the sort of paladin style buff-focused faith build is still pretty solid, just don't expect to get a lot of use out of the Lightning Spear group of spells.
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Jun 27, 2023 14:25
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Mostly mechanical and non-spoilery things that would feature in an old-school game manual: - Estus heals over time and will be a lot more limited than in DS1. - However there are consumables called Life Gems for healing in addition to Estus. - There's a dedicated button to look for/open a secret door, hitting the wall with the sword doesn't work in DS2. - Stamina and Max Weight are now tied to two separate stats from DS2 onward, no more double dipping. - There's a new stat called Adaptability which is kind of a big deal. If you look at the extended stats sheet, there's a derived stat called Agility that comes mostly from Adaptability. This is what determines how many invincibility frames you get on a roll. Main breakpoints are 96/99/105 for respectively 11/12/13 iframes. If you feel like your roll doesn't protect you from hits, this is likely due to your low Agility, like 85 Agility gives you just 5 iframes. Up to you to decide how much you want/need, and pump ADP until you get there. - There's a mechanic called Power Stance that gives you special moves when you dual-wield, based on the weapon type combinations (sword+sword, sword+mace, mace+dagger, but really: UGS+UGS). You activate it like two-handling with a long press on, errr, the Y button? The twist is that you need 50% more STR/DEX than the weapons requirements for power stance to be an option. If you do, you'll notice a slight change in hands stance of the character, and from there L1/L2 will be special two-weapon strikes which drain stamina like there's no tomorrow but pack a punch, and more importantly, look awesome. Building for dex should be super straightforward and you can have fun pairing dex weapons together to try our power stancing. And nothing wrong with dipping into whichever magic you want on the side. There's a lot of game in DS2, you'll get more than enough xp to diversify as you see fit. FishMcCool fucked around with this message at 14:57 on Jun 27, 2023 |
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Jun 27, 2023 14:33
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Dark Souls II is my favourite of the trilogy by a considerable distance. People here are covering things pretty well. It has a ton of content and is basically Elden Ring before Elden Ring came out. Also do not miss the DLCs. All three of them are pretty stunning and have a some of the best bosses in FromSoft in them. (At least, this is the way I feel). Most importantly, have fun. It will feel different to Dark Souls 1 but all FromSoft games have a slightly different feel to them. I hope you have a blast! 
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Jun 27, 2023 14:37
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Serephina posted:Hello, thread! I just totally binged the poo poo out of DS:R after a decade of pointedly ignoring the series, and enjoyed myself thoroughly. Played it through totally unspoilered, missed a ton of content, and gonna fly on in to the next one since it's recommended. It's currently downloading and I'm stoked! DS2 gives you good shields way later, so it'll naturally encourage you to be a bit more aggressive. Faith buff style works fairly well, especially because contrary to DS1, the elemental weapon system is very strong and you can do poo poo like take a sword that naturally has lightning damage, have a smith make it more lightning-y, then enchant it with a lightning buff on top. The actual castable lightning buff and a lot of the funner weapons in that vein come a bit late, but you can supplement with consumables, or just don't go highly into faith at first. Dex is also fine, bit one-note maybe, because you just slash slash slash all day. Have you ever considered using two weapons instead of weapon + shield? DS2 got you covered with the Powerstance system. Inquire further if you're interested. Apart from the Adaptability thing mentioned (aim for 96 Agility asap), another thing that DS2 does differently than DS1 is NPCs: they move around like in DS1, but only after you exhausted their dialogue. There's at least one NPC where it's crucial that they move for progression, they also move to a very unintuitive place, so, uh, if you ever get stuck - happened to me - check here: Licia moves to the first room on the way to Heide's tower from Majula And have fun! DS2 owns! EDIT: right, yeah, don't miss the secret door advice from above!
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Jun 27, 2023 14:40
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Simply Simon posted:Dex is also fine, bit one-note maybe, because you just slash slash slash all day. Hey now, you also have the good pokes, some good fun with bows, and some neat other stuff here and there. Plus, rapier+curved sword is a really fun powerstance.
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Jun 27, 2023 14:44
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Play the Scholar of the First Sin edition and don't listen to anyone who tells you otherwise.
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Jun 27, 2023 15:30
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Fister Roboto posted:Play the Scholar of the First Sin edition and don't listen to anyone who tells you otherwise.
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Jun 27, 2023 15:35
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There's a new kind of magic called Hexes in DS2. You will meet the Hex weirdo a bit into the game, and if you have enough of both INT and FTH he will give you the best and best looking catalyst in the game. Hexes are awesome. Enemies will start to disappear if killed more than 12 times. There's a covenant that will stop enemies from despawning if you want to farm for something. Bonfire ascetics are a new thing. Toss it into a bonfire and the whole area will be reset and thrown into NG+. Steel chests won't reset, but wooden chests, enemies and bosses. There are some items that only appear in NG+ that you can get by burning ascetics. Can't be undone, and will get another NG++ level for each ascetic. Parries are weird, timing is weird, and you have to wait for the enemy to fall on their rear end until you can riposte. You can get invaded without being in human form. Both by NPCs and humans. There are a lot of NPC invaders, some which will come back for you when you least expect. Majula is the best and chillest place in any video game. Enjoy the setting sun, and Don't give up, skeleton!
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Jun 27, 2023 16:01
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Another thing, DS2 is probably the longest of the original 3 by a fair margin. Not elden ring long, but still long.
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Jun 27, 2023 16:52
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People have covered most of it but if you're looking for fun and interesting build ideas may I offer: powerstancing caestuus? The equip requirements are pretty low but you're always active and dodging about, and you'll have the strength to switch into other weapons if you need a bit more range.
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Jun 28, 2023 01:45
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You can respec with an item called a Soul Vessel so don't be afraid to try stuff.
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Jun 28, 2023 02:35
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Double Plus Undead posted:People have covered most of it but if you're looking for fun and interesting build ideas may I offer: powerstancing caestuus? The equip requirements are pretty low but you're always active and dodging about, and you'll have the strength to switch into other weapons if you need a bit more range. +1 to this. Powerstanced caestus was the most fun I've had with this game so far
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Jun 28, 2023 02:36
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Powerstanced cestus is good and you can switch one to bone fist late game, which also rules. but just a heads up, fist weapons can’t hit crystal lizards for poo poo. Pack a backup with more than arms-length reach
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Jun 28, 2023 02:51
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MonsieurChoc posted:You can respec with an item called a Soul Vessel so don't be afraid to try stuff. Also unlike every other game that allows respecs, you can theoretically farm an infinite number of them. Fister Roboto fucked around with this message at 06:58 on Jun 28, 2023 |
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Jun 28, 2023 06:55
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I am INTENSELY TILTED at this "you lose maxhp on dying" horseshit. I've lost 23k xp when I've only ever bought a single levelup, and my next still only costs 900. Every hit is taking off 40% of my effectively-max hp, and I've run out of consumables to reverse the process. I think I'm just gonna kill 3 enemies, run back to town to levelup, and repeat ad nasuem. Jesus christ that's grinding what am I doing wrong, I never had to grind anything with the first game gently caress me. edit: the game has started to depopulate the world to make it easier on me. I don't need your fail-forward pity, especially since all it's doing is counteracting the penalties for dying. How loving backwards. update: Cleared first boss, am working on the second, poked toes into the presumably next area with big knights in it. Am still utterly loathing the hp loss on death. Serephina fucked around with this message at 14:49 on Jun 28, 2023 |
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Jun 28, 2023 09:00
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Serephina posted:I am INTENSELY TILTED at this "you lose maxhp on dying" horseshit. I've lost 23k xp when I've only ever bought a single levelup, and my next still only costs 900. Every hit is taking off 40% of my effectively-max hp, and I've run out of consumables to reverse the process. I think I'm just gonna kill 3 enemies, run back to town to levelup, and repeat ad nasuem. Jesus christ that's grinding what am I doing wrong, I never had to grind anything with the first game gently caress me. Investing in HP early on is very much recommended. And if the max HP loss tilts you enough that you feel like getting a spoiler, then: There's a chest across the boss room of Heide's Tower of Flame (area accessible directly from Majula) which contains a ring that halves the max HP loss, effectively capping the HP loss to 25% at full hollowing.
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Jun 28, 2023 09:12
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DS2 probably has one of the hardest first areas of the trilogy even if the boss itself is ridiculously easy compared to gundyr but it gets better as your build and equipment come together
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Jun 28, 2023 18:57
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The HP loss isn't that bad, or at least I don't remember it being an issue on my last playthrough. There's a ring that can offset it, and you can get effigies easily, or co-op to get some. Blast your ADP and health early. Definitely consider whether that extra health was enough to survive the encounter not the attack that killed you as well. (edit: the ring is technically within reach right from Majula if you can maybe get a friend to help, and by "isn't that bad" I mean it stops being a concern eventually) Buy life gems with extra souls every time you go back too. Flasks are not plentiful at first. Use estus for healing in fights, gems for time in between, or both if needed. Also as mentioned bows are actually amazing so don't be afraid to toss a light/cheap on one and have some arrows. You can pull enemies, or just kill them. Souls are infinite, and levels are super cheap in DS2 for a long time. With ADP being involved you can definitely rip right past level 50 or 60 before you even have a real build going.
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Jun 28, 2023 22:17
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I think I'm also making things unnecessarily hard on myself with my choice of tools; I started with a fencer character and after pumping HP and AGL, all I'm able to power stance are short swords. I think maybe I should just reroll and dump a lot of points into Str and use a shield, as clearly I'm not good enough to rely on "don't get hit" yet. I also tried parrying with an offhand falchion vs a dagger mook, it took four estus charges and I got maybe one parry out of a few dozen hits. I'm very bad at this game and miss my shield.
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Jun 29, 2023 01:34
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