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Djeser posted:Company of Champions not only makes everything harder but it also removes all summons. The summons in Dark Souls 2 are not only good, but they often do interesting things--like Ruined Alfis casting light in the skellington tunnel in FoFG, or Bradley of the Old Guard providing healing in No Man's Wharf. Imagine never meeting Sellsword Luet. 
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Sep 6, 2020 18:21
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I think I might be finally gearing up for a playthrough (non-SOTFS). Are there any pro-tips I should know? I'm talking stuff like missables, easily broken sidequests, etc. I don't care about spoilers. I already know about Adaptability, I know not to open whatsisface's cell before doing his other stuff first if I want everything, and I know buying lots of stuff from merchants and summoning NPC friends for bosses are both good ideas. I also know about breakable chests, bonfire ascetics, all that general rigamarole. Illusory walls work differently, that too. One I didn't know until recently is that there seem to be parts where it's borderline required to have a bow or some other aimable ranged attack to press some Zelda type switches (and maybe a few areas with otherwise unreachable stuff that's a good idea to kill).
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Oct 4, 2020 01:33
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skasion posted:It’s generally a good idea to have a bow anywhere though, for ranged damage and pulling. The idea of shooting a small pointy stick at an enemy instead of smashing their head in with a large blunt stick is simply offensive to me.
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Oct 4, 2020 03:13
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Decided to get started! Things Betwixt, Majula basics, and Forest have all been cleared.  Pate got stepped on a few too many times, but oh well. Pursuer was a bit of a jerk but not too bad.Currently debating the merits of doing Heide's immediately vs. beelining for ye olde Large Club in Lost Bastille...
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Oct 4, 2020 13:39
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Zero fear for Heide's, I just wanna get back to great hammering ASAP.
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Oct 4, 2020 13:59
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Simply Simon posted:Trade in some smooth and shiny stones and/or petrified somethings with the crows and hope for the Demon's Greathammer, which is way the hell better than its DS1 incarnation I actually took the fossilized turd as my starting gift with this exact thing in mind, but sadly RNG was not on my side. Though really just like the DG in 1, I won't have the stats for it for a while anyway. I'll certainly give it a shot though if it does show up. Glad to hear it's worth a drat this time around.
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Oct 5, 2020 03:27
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Nearly freaked out because it turns out having a summon sign down cancels NPC signs. So not only is Lucatiel's sign in a dumb spot, but I couldn't see it at first.  I've seen a surprisingly large number of people around bonfires, but I suspect much like DS1 I'm just never going to actually get any co-op action before drifting out of range for most people.Anyway, pushed through Heide's, decided to do Wharf immediately after (Gavlan!  ), and did the first big sweep of Lost Bastille. Ended for the day just beyond the Sentinels and got my Large Club, now +5 and ready to smash. 
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Oct 5, 2020 12:16
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I've also been having a heck of a time telling at a glance whether or not I'm human when I'm at full health capacity.  ...Gonna be even harder now that I've put on the stone mask and become a vampire.Which speaking of, I got the itch to push forward a bit more so I cleared out the rest of Lost Bastille as well as Belfry Luna and Sinner's Rise. That whole sequence ended up feeling janky. I had to go all the way down to basically ring Lost Sinner's doorbell so I could get the lockstone I needed to unlock Belfry. And if I had accidentally used it on the wrong Bastille lock I would be SOL without trekking somewhere else to find another one. (Not that it's mandatory, but still.) Now the fragrant branch is sort of the same way, where if I wasted it on Straid I would be making my life harder for no reason at all.
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Oct 5, 2020 16:06
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I got a little mixed up and thought Licia wanted a whopping 20k to push her stupid button so I was avoiding Huntsman's Copse this whole time for no reason. Instead I brute forced my way through Shaded Woods which was uh...not a pleasant experience. Those invisible guys are bullshit and not even in a fun Dark Souls bullshit kind of way IMO. Probably doesn't help that the Large Club's moveset is just miserable against them; the hitbox on R1 is still a complete mystery to me. The rest of the area aint great either. Najka herself wasn't a big deal tho and I got a few nice upgrades along the way. Priests + Congregation were Pinwheel levels of pathetic against the might of the caveman smash. The rest of Tseldora was a huge mess and I ran around like an idiot clumsily clearing out about 80% of it before my weapon was near-totally broken and I still had spider town to do, so I noped out for the moment. The real plus side to this whole excursion is that thoroughly exploring Doors meant I accidentally farmed an entire set of Grym gear, including  the anvil on a stick Said anvil on a stick made drat short work of Huntsman's Copse. Though perhaps slightly too well since it one-shot the Skeleton Lords, leading to a frantic Benny Hill routine of being chased around the arena by all of the adds at once.  Chariot was a boss that I was expecting to be some horrible ordeal give its reputation but it was a totally straightforward fight. Certainly not on the same level of difficulty or tedium as the time I blundered into Ceaseless Discharge early and fought him legit. Current loose ends: Royal Rat Authority wasn't working out, but my +10 Grym Hammer may change my luck there. Harvest Valley is on the table now (honestly just excited to get Gavlan home so I can turn my junk into even more power ). On the other hand, I have to duck back into Tseldora if only to grab a few critical things I missed (flask shard) and it may make sense to just go knock out Freja right away. Means I can grab the +1 Dragon Ring from Tark which would be a pretty huge power bump I think. And I still haven't messed with the hole as of yet... Edit: Oh right and in theory I could try NG+ing Chariot for that sweet, sweet Cloranthy Ring +2...
John Murdoch fucked around with this message at 13:07 on Oct 6, 2020 |
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Oct 6, 2020 12:59
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IronicDongz posted:I don't normally block the skeletons or roll through the spike, I hide in the alcoves and just try to kill nearby skeletons right before I do. This is pretty much what I did. Even when they did manage to stay alive the most threatening thing any of the skellies could actually do is fire arrows at me. SHISHKABOB posted:I don't think I've ever really fought the invisible guys. Just run awaaaaaaaaay Eventually I did give up on trying to clear them out (missed one chest, nothing important) but they do have a nasty tendency of trying to backstab you. Which at that point was a non-negotiable OHK, even at full HP and probably still is. Landing backstabs on enemies also seems uh, a lot more generous than in 1? Or maybe just way buggier. About half the time if I dodged through the Leo Knights' basic swings and was anywhere near their back I could convert it into a backstab. The phantom in front of the chariot arena similarly died when I dodged all of one attack and then oops all backstab. Dunno if the sweet spot is larger, I'm unwittingly doing some magic 180 trick thanks to lock-on/attack aiming, or both. John Murdoch fucked around with this message at 15:01 on Oct 6, 2020 |
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Oct 6, 2020 14:58
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I foolishly got cocky just 'cause I took out Freja, got the rest of Vengarl's threads, and got the dragon ring from Tark. For me it's entirely down to the phantom. I can generally get a clean-ish fight with the BDSM boys (even managed to do it once when their aggro bugged the gently caress out, since they'll start to leash if you retreat back over the stone bridge), I can pretty easily outrun them and just walk into the boss, or I could force them into extinction. But Mr. PVP tryhard is gonna be there every time now. Also the one time I did make it into the boss I immediately got crowded by all three skeletons in one of the cubbies and it turns out they do real damage now so I died pretty much immediately and subsequently lost a fair few souls.  I could probably dial it in and eventually come out on top but that loving run back...And I guess I was feeling spicy since I pivoted from that absolute failure over to Royal Rat Authority. Reeeeeally not a fan of that fight either but the fucker's dead now.
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Oct 6, 2020 17:12
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goblin week posted:Throw some alluring skulls! Definitely a trick I will keep in my back pocket (or honestly more likely forget completely by the time its relevant again) but for now I'm content to let that white whale go and move on with the rest of the game.
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Oct 6, 2020 17:36
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In general I've found a lot of nasty enemies will back off if you just run away a bit. The first hippo in Things Betwixt is the easiest of the bunch since he can't fit through the hole you use to reach him in the first place. The two on the beach struggle with the shortcut tree. And since they turn around to stomp back to their spawn points it's a little easier to get them into a butt loop once you do re-engage.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 got to see this happen to someone in real time yesterday. 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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Oct 7, 2020 04:28
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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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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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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 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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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'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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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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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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Appoda posted:Huh. I never considered that problem with the gas bugs 'cause I always had something with a reach attack or a thrust R2, but I can see how that'd be an annoying issue if all of your weapons are short range. The Demon's Great Hammer is my bread and butter currently, so I do have *some* range to work with but apparently not quite enough. And I guess in fairness you can also tackle it like you tackle any other acid problem - strip naked and use a backup weapon you don't mind breaking if worst comes to worst. (Or probably even just punch the stupid thing. I have no idea if it can even attack.) But obviously that's not exactly the most fun thing to worry about every single time. I dunno if the raw number of enemies is the exact problem for me, but I will indirectly agree that Shrine is a real pace wrecker. The castle is ominous and atmospheric and the Looking Glass Knight is clearly meant to be a minor climax by himself. Crypt is where the actual big endgame turn happens with Velstadt and the King. You'd think Shrine would be the breather area meant to cool you off after the former and start building you up for the latter. Also tangentially related, I have no idea what the deal with the Milfanito is. Like I'm sure there's a whole bunch of Deep Lore there, but just in a game design sense the whole "go down to Shrine to randomly get the keyblade so you can go back to the castle to give the key gimp his release and get...basically nothing for it" feels like it was maybe meant to be a more originally and just...wasn't. Actually I could picture it rather clearly - going on a side quest to rescue the Milfanito and each one rescued adds to the singing in Shrine, pacifying more and more of the enemies (or for a greater time, more coverage of some kind) to make things a bit easier. And if you just wanted to YOLO straight through there's nothing stopping you. Not wholly unlike the Giant Soul stuff with Vendrick.
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Oct 23, 2020 19:07
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Djeser posted:My guess was that the deal with the Milfanito up in the tower was taken and put there for Vendrick's sake, and that the whole deal with the Embedded was that this would be a good place to hide her/keep her safe/keep her away from anyone who might come and take them. For me it's about how it all just...fails to go anywhere. It's just kind of a thing you can do, if you really feel like it. No payoff, no downside to ignoring it. Heck, I just realized there isn't even any real lore attached to the ring you get, which still would've been a flimsy reward but would've been something. What little is there makes me imagine it originally being required to talk to Agdayne or maybe changing the behavior of the infinite zombie spawns, but even that's a stretch. You don't even get the basic satisfaction of seeing all of the Milfanitos reunited at the humanity shrine or anything. As for Shrine's relative location...it sooort of works for me? I will say one thing that helps, as minor as it is, is you can see a depiction of the tree and its spindly roots in the little chapel area right before Looking Glass Knight. It helps connect the two areas just enough for it to not feel like they were never intended to go together. Obviously DS2 plays fast and loose with this stuff, but I can kind of see the castle being up high above, gloomy and rainy and then Shrine is way down below, flooded by all that rainwater (which also feeds the tree). That said, and maybe it's just because the sound effect for them makes my teeth itch, but I have become a little bit irritated with how often areas are connected via long, long elevator rides. I'm not really a stickler for the world coherence stuff, but they certainly are boring with rare exceptions (Dragon Aerie).
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Oct 24, 2020 06:54
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Separate progress post: Turns out farming twinkling titanite from Shrine is a fool's game, though I did get enough from exhausting the regular spawns (and subsequently gently caress all after flipping on CoC ) for it to not be a total waste. Bizarrely, the giant beetle does not respawn even with CoC activated, which makes me wonder if it was meant to be a one-off and its flags aren't set properly.  Velstadt took two tries. I don't think I ever knew Vendrick's chamber was actually surrounded by endless rings of tombs. Possibly of kings past? Super unsettling. In my mind's eye, I pictured Aldia's Keep as sort of like Lost Bastille 2.0. A slightly larger area with lots of wacky nonsense and uh, no, it's basically just a hallway. Guardian Dragon existed...briefly. Dragon Aerie is actually as easy to farm for twinkling titanite and dragon bones as people say it is.  Though I suspect I might hit a point where it's too much for me to handle considering how many goddamn twinklers I need in total (and that's after getting lucky with crow trades for a bunch too). At least all the bones I invested into the Old Iron King Hammer don't feel like a gigantic, irreversible mistake now. And I finally got a...teensy tiny incremental upgrade from the Demon Great Hammer in the form of the Dragon Tooth.Dragon Shrine was a bit of a gauntlet but with the big boys it's practically rocket tag - they can two shot me, I can two shot them. I would like the great hammer they can drop but I know those drops are infamously stupidly rare and AFAIK it's not much more than a metal DGH that upgrades with regular titanite. Doesn't seem to be much point in chasing after that. The Ancient Dragon gets to live...for now. 
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Oct 24, 2020 07:45
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axolotl farmer posted:Ancient Dragon is stupidly easy if you cheese it. Mostly saving him until I'm fully settled on what I'm doing w/r/t twinkling farming. You can freely burn ascetics to respawn a chest with some (goes from x1 to x3 at 2+) but if you've pissed him off you need to kill him every time and I'm definitely not doing that. Though I guess realistically the Shulva method works the exact same way while being less dangerous, more profitable, and is fully infinite so I guess that's settled. Pretty sure I'm at a level of power where cheesing isn't necessary, either. (Cue me bitching about the fight later tonight.) Appoda posted:Dragon Tooth is 8 units lighter, so it's sometimes preferred for that reason. I wanna say the range is a little shorter, but probably not meaningfully so. Also as is tradition the tooth gives you some bonus resistances. There are three more weapons of note I'm gunning for this playthrough - 1) The giant's club for that maximum AR goodness. 2) What is becoming a tradition of dipping into other weapon categories for their baaasically a club/hammer offerings... And of course finally 3) the biggest, chicken leggiest hammer of them all. Crystalgate posted:One thing to try if you're going with Great Hammers is powerstancing two great clubs. You just need 42 strength and 9 dexterity for that. With a Demon’s Great Hammer, you're either close there or already has those stats. I've thought about powerstancing but I dunno. On the one the hand it is definitely some maximum smash and I can get behind that but on the other hand the moveset doesn't appeal to me all that much and seems like it's liable to get me killed versus most bosses, which is the only place I'd care about the extra raw damage. I do have a complete embarrassment of titanite, so getting it online is NBD though. (I'm sitting on like 10~ slabs, many of which were normal, non-lizard drops or yet more dumb luck with the crows.  ) Oh, and I'm playing KB+M so it's not as smooth an experience using L1/L2 type functions. (Also no, I can't do a jump attack except by accident, why do you ask?) Guess it wouldn't hurt to experiment though.
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Oct 24, 2020 20:40
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Right, that was the other thing I was worried about. With how big and fat I'm building stamina management has never not been a concern, even with every single passive stamina boost active, a decent weight %, and 30 points in it.
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Oct 24, 2020 20:55
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Darklurker. First. loving. Try.
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Oct 25, 2020 07:46
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Alsoooo the Giant Memories have all been handled. Giant Lord had a lot of teething pains. The artillery fire, obviously. And Benhart likes to YOLO charge and start the fight early which leads to problems. Then the usual "oops he sworded off screen like *this* and not like *that* so you ded now" issues. But hey now I'm the proud owner of a genuine authentic legendary imitation sword. The memory that's a gauntlet of like 10 giants was a bit of a pain too, if only for the time limit forcing you to find an opening in that alley of death. So how about that 5th giant soul... John Murdoch posted:Pretty sure I'm at a level of power where cheesing isn't necessary, either. (Cue me bitching about the fight later tonight.) Here's my short review of Ancient Dragon: Ugh. Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh. UGH. ...Does exploiting his simplistic AI in a way that still only works roughly 85% of the time count as "cheesing" him? Or is there some actual Dark Soulsy cheese where you can quarterback dung pies over the fog wall or something? After many, many, many deaths and about as many "okay this has to be my last attempt for tonight"s (both from him directly and that nasty ole runback) I am now packing a +10 Giant Warrior Club powered by all five Giant Souls. Time 4 regicide.
John Murdoch fucked around with this message at 08:48 on Oct 25, 2020 |
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Oct 25, 2020 08:16
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axolotl farmer posted:Just the old "Poke toe, repeat until it lifts it fooot, run to other foot, poke toe, repeat until dead " strat. I have only fought Anicient Dragong once, and it really felt like cheesing, but the Player vs. Camera fights are the ones I least enjoy in any Dark Souls. Looking at you, Nameless King I tried using that strategy but I guess I didn't quite understand the execution (or my timings are just too slow) because what would usually happen is he would stomp once, then either do his death hop or his death fire and welp. Edit: Yeah looking it up on Youtube I didn't know the exact pattern you're supposed to go for. I also probably died to the under fire blast at least once and then gave up. Probably would've had a much easier time if I knew about that method, egh. I did the one where you bait out his long fire breath sweeps, run in, hit once or twice, then run the gently caress away to either bait out another or already be a mile away so the incredibly vague radius of his death fire doesn't end you. Though if those are cheese what's the "legit" way of fighting him, lol John Murdoch fucked around with this message at 22:39 on Oct 25, 2020 |
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Oct 25, 2020 22:30
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Rubellavator posted:if he flies run towards his tail and then loop back after he lands And then get hit by the fire anyway, somehow. Or he slams back down and you get smushed instead. That was my experience trying to do it that way, at least.
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Oct 25, 2020 23:21
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Vendrick and all 3 bosses of Shulva are dead. Elana is a dirty cheater for summoning Velstadt twice. Also I wish I had found my bro Benhart's summon sign and hadn't gone in with only punch lady. The main run of Brume Tower is also like 96% cleared. Sadly I was not extraordinarily lucky enough to get the Smelter Hammer without trying. Shulva is just a wee bit too criss-crossy for my liking and that last descent down to Elana is very...blah, but otherwise I dig it. The ghost knights are a cool gimmick that I somehow have never had spoiled. The Zelda switch stuff is ok. Could've done without the corrosive bugs though the big ambush was suitably dramatic. Brume Tower was reasonably fun and Zelda dungeon-y as well but some of the encounters are a little unnecessarily extra and/or tedious and boy is it easy to miss one of the like eight side paths that also usually just hide a single item.
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Oct 26, 2020 10:00
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SHISHKABOB posted:It's sort of like Vendrick. The way you kill him is real tedious but simple. But if you screw up he wallops you and you probably die. It is perhaps low skill in mechanical execution, but it's an endurance fight. And it's basically the same strategy as the Last Giant/Giant Lord. Really makes u think. RBA Starblade posted:The Gank Squad boss will never not be funny Props to my summon buddies for actually doing a respectable job. I was able to focus on the ranger and they managed to nearly take out the berserker on their own. Naturally it came down to a long, tedious 1v1 between me and the last one.
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Oct 27, 2020 02:23
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Very first drop from the very first Iron Warrior after I start farming: Minotaur Helm, lol. ...Followed by several more cycles to get them to drop anything at all, which thankfully was my chicken leg. The more important takeaway from this was that man, fatigue really does gently caress me up. The other night I wasn't struggling against the Iron Warriors necessarily, but they felt like a pain to fight. Today they're barely an issue.
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Oct 28, 2020 01:08
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Back in the day I wanna say it was a somewhat common thing for rear end in a top hat hackers to pop in and kill all of your NPCs? But at this point I doubt they're a thing.
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Oct 29, 2020 23:07
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Maybe it was just a bad night for Dark Souls, but I'm not particularly fond of any of the three Iron King bosses. I see their merits in the abstract (even blue Smelter), but for my build and level of skill they're just obnoxious.
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Oct 30, 2020 07:13
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Independently of how I feel about the bosses themselves, I don't get why NPC summons are almost universally terrible in the DLC. Is it a bug? An oversight with some scaling factor? Or intentional, garbage design? Summoning help should not be a trap option, especially not against the hardest bosses in the game. It reads as intentional because they deal perfectly fine damage on the run-up, and in the case of the Gank Squad you actually get some decent (if not amazing) help. Meanwhile they slap down Ellie's summoning sign everywhere and she's loving useless beyond being a meatshield for the four seconds she's alive before inevitably getting trapped in a corner and dying. Pretty sure I watched Ellie use Fire Storm against Aava and even with Aava standing in the fire spouts it didn't actually do any damage. What even the gently caress.
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Oct 30, 2020 22:43
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Paracelsus posted:It depends on the fight/summon. Transcendent Edde can just about solo Sinh himself, and if you can bring all three summons to the boss room for 2Cats the fight gets a lot easier. That's what makes it especially frustrating. No consistency at all. Edit: To whit, I soloed Sinh because I expected the summons to suck. John Murdoch fucked around with this message at 04:00 on Oct 31, 2020 |
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Oct 31, 2020 03:54
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RBA Starblade posted:I think a lot of those summons are there precisely as meatshields, especially for spellcasters. Thing is, they could've included an actual tank NPC if they wanted to (I know Sellsword Luet pops up more often in Scholar, forex). Whereas even with shields Aidel and Lorrie spent most of those fights fully absorbing hits with their faces and they just barely help by merit of having inflated health pools to chip down. And even then they tend to get hit by the same attacks at the same time, so the benefits of having both vs. just one or none is questionable. GodFish posted:Ellie always kicks rear end against Aava for me, not sure what's happening there for you. Aava was hopping all over the place for most of the fight, so basically at least 50% of the time Ellie was a mile down range and at best absorbing the magic attack. Maybe it was bad luck or hitbox/timing weirdness with the fire spouts. Or maybe it did (meager) damage and I somehow didn't notice. Either way her presence wasn't really felt.  (Also more  @ her having pyromancies in DLC 3 but not 1 or 2.)
John Murdoch fucked around with this message at 00:31 on Nov 1, 2020 |
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Nov 1, 2020 00:29
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And so the great horned warrior refused the throne and continued to walk her long, winding road... The Ivory King DLC is easily my favorite of the bunch, though it isn't without its problems. It feels distinctly more...DS1 than the rest of the game. For both good and bad. I have a sneaking suspicion the enemies are a bit more of a challenge for people not wielding giant slabs of rock (or wearing giant slabs of rock for that matter), but for me things felt just about right. With an obvious spikey exception which could even completely duck my R1's if they were standing too close. Love love love love the Loyce Knights gimmick, though I can't help but feel like they could've used a little more fanfare. The final encounter is unique and fun, even if in my overleveled state (and bringing both the Ivory King's sworn foe, Titchy Gren, and Lucatiel on one last adventure) it wasn't a huge peak of difficulty. It sure is weird how they didn't include a co-op area like in the other two DLCs, but oh well! v vMy take on DS2 as a whole...I think it's pretty dang good, especially given its development issues. If I have to weigh it against DS1, it only comes out slightly below it and frankly depending on the day of the week I might reverse them. Both because I lack reverence for 1 and because 2 proved itself admirably. DS1 is more focused and more confident but it shits the bed pretty hard halfway through. 2 is this sprawling experimental mess yet often manages to feel more fun in the moment to moment than its predecessor despite also being a lot rougher around the edges. At the very least, the variety is dazzling. Despite the efforts of some of the late game areas, DS1 often felt very...monochrome. Drangleic has a much more vibrant palette by comparison. And this extends into the mechanics too, particularly the covenants. It also feels like there are vastly more weapons of *all* types and more weird unique ones hiding around as well. The Bone Fist, while a DLC addition, feels emblematic of 2's ethos. If there's a single key flaw that DS2 regularly suffers from, it's simply the encounter design as a whole. In DS1 it felt like most every enemy was deliberately placed just so and there was a methodical feel to assessing the situation and coming up with a plan to tackle it. Even something as simple as a couple of strategically placed hollows could make for a compelling challenge. (I could gush at length about the design of the Undead Burg.) Some moments in 2 do manage to reach the same level of quality, but more often enemy placement feels...I dunno what the right word is...unmotivated? Like the three separate times enemies are chilling on the other side of gates in Lost Bastille. Or the undead blacksmiths that just kinda hang around a single room at the end of Harvest Valley for no real reason. It's like they started from the baseline of something like Lost Izalith and improved on that. Combined with the smaller areas and the changes to the healing system it feels like there's an internal tension to the design that often comes out the other side feeling too simplistic, or lazy, or even unfair. Still though, definitely glad to have played it. Honestly at this point I'm wondering if DS3's emphasis on blazing fast speed is where my appreciation of the series is actually going to crack.  But that'll definitely have to wait...I'm all Souls'ed out at the moment after 45 freaking hours of smashing stuff in the face.
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Nov 1, 2020 10:03
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Look Sir Droids posted:There is a co-op area in Ivory King. Uh huh, sure, I bet you have to beat it to unlock Stop N Swop and use that to resurrect Rhea in DS1.  Can't fool me, buddy.Also re: controls. It took some effort to force them into the right configuration but you can get them pretty close to DS1. Though I think Remastered, by merit of being new and ported to the DS3 engine?, got some tweaks to make the controls more flexible so a lot of that is going to be missing from 2 no matter what. I also think Scholar actually did improve the control bindings a bit too but I'm not 100% on that. Nebakenezzer, it sounds like the problem you're having is the same one I somehow glitched into halfway through my playthrough. Basically you need to go in and unbind every redundant function. I think the game gets confused and thinks you're permanently holding Shift/Ctrl/Alt which switches you to the alternate binds where half of your basic functions are hosed and the rest are bound to nonsense. Hence, estus drinking is suddenly spacebar. Go through all of the tabs and turn every weird-looking default bind to "none" and it should clear up.
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Nov 2, 2020 02:10
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