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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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| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 15:18 |
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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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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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Yea a quick search of tutorials shows guys parrying with their fist, while I'm here unable to use the buckler to parry poo poo. I was power-stancing the dual short swords for a while, but I've given up and using a lightweight shield now instead; the comfort of not getting instantly gibbed every time I misjudge a great weapon's rage is very nice. It feels wrong that I've found the short sword way more forgiving than any of the dex weapons I've encountered, but hopefully that changes soon and I find a reason to put points into dex. Defeating the Pursuer suddenly unlocked like five new areas, things seem less cramped now and the despawning enemies are less burdensome. But seriously! That shouldn't be a thing! Like on the run from the fireplace to the Pursuer there where two shield+spear hollows who I hadn't quite "figured out" how to gracefully beat while power-stancing. Sure, I killed them a ton as they where previously in the way of exploring the room behind them, but they had been removed from spawning long before I was "done" learning from them, farming had nothing to do with it.
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Jun 29, 2023 09:06
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There is absolutely no way that I would go online, this is my single player game du jour, tyvm. This might be the wrong title for it, but oh well. Also that ring of binding have been a game changer, it really does pull the hp values above "one hit = flask usage", thank gosh. I've clocked off several more bosses, and amusingly my lovely powerstance works great vs bosses, better than on the fodder it seems.
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Jun 29, 2023 17:18
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Oh that's a good question, what triggers the NPC invasions? There's one guy in the misty jungle ruins who is really erratic about when he shows up, and I owe him a favor. I've used a human effigy once or twice on a walk to a boss and seen the summon signs, but only used it for the very first boss as I was tilted and cbf trying. Technically I summoned a second guy on a whim for the pirate bay boss, but let her die after I saw the boss become trivial and I'd rather do it solo, which only took another try or two. There's a lot of gratification in winning these fights, and unlike a lot of the comedy troll level layouts all the bosses seem very fair and fun so far. ----------- On a different topic, I had a bit of deja vu then recognized where I saw it before: in the Forest of Giants castle, right underneath a bonefire, there's the fire room with a bunch of salamanders in it. I remember some drama from years ago about how people where angry that the teaser screenshots didn't represent the ingame reality? What's the lowdown on that? I have noticed some slowdowns here and there despite having above suggested specs, so knowing gamers I'd imagine there was a lot of shrieking about that lol. I constantly have to remind myself that despite how beautiful Madjor and other vistas are, this game is older than the DS:R I just played and so things like what you look like hollowed are expected to be worse.
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Jun 30, 2023 04:02
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Q regarding power stance and stuff: A) Is there more to it than just "total sacrifice of defense for a 30% boost in dps while dumping stamina"? That's been my extremely noobie experience so far, it doesn't really seem to stunlock better, and has worse damage-per-combo due to the stamina costs when you do stunlock. I'm at the point where I might consider adding in bleed or poison effects since I can afford them now, but I'm skeptical that either will help much with power stance - like, does it technically hit multiple times so you get multiple bleed procs? And that's totally aside from the raw dps loss of using oddball weapons PvE. Other mechanical Q: in DSR, I just found some stone armour very early on which was both endgame stuff and unenchantable, so I kinda ignored armour enchanting (and everyone told me not to, anyways). Is that any different in DS2? Also if I'm playing with 0 poise, is there any point in trying to raise the puny defense stat or should I just go for fashion and elemental resistances? (and there's some eldritch stuff about stat scaling armour, idgi) edit: I'm also reading up on poise, and uh, I hope it's different PvE sine that's a crazy amount of info and all I'm getting from this is "heavy armour or nothing". Serephina fucked around with this message at 04:44 on Jul 1, 2023 |
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Jul 1, 2023 04:28
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Well I've been powerstancing my Shortswords for bosses and it's been going great, only pulling out a Katana when I'm forced to use my offhand for shields or torches. Been loving the Dex build now that it's taken off, I mostly shoot stuff with my bow and am surprised how hard it hits, and have the option to swap to different melee styles. The upgrade paths are much more affordable in DS2, the swords are +8 and the bow is +10, and I don't feel like I've given anything up for committing to upgrades so early. I also, really, *really* appreciate that I can swing weapons I don't have the stats for, just to test their animations; I saw a twin-blade and am biding my time until I can afford to get some Str to weild it, seems so zany. That, those claws, etc, it's great to finally feel like I have options, especially after I feel I was kinda railroaded in DSR once I committed to upgrading something.
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Jul 1, 2023 14:29
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After blowing a bunch of money getting the Str to wield it and enchanting it up, I have never been so disappointed as I am with this twinblade. After trialing, there where some few shining comedy moments when trash mobs surrounded me and all get gibbed while behind my back, but it feels like it needs a totally different character to properly utilize. Like, armour with real poise so you can afford to wade in to things, or maybe some stoneskin buffs, and either a lot more +dmg or +bleed effects than I own, and oh yea a ton more stamina. So basically not whatever I'm doing, a shame. I also stepped out into a Belfry Gargoyle fight and muttered to myself "not these assholes again".
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Jul 2, 2023 16:50
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heard u like girls posted:Santier's Spear after you break the rock off of it by destroying it's durability. Oooh, I have that weapon, I was actually thinking about it when someone said to use concussive damage on the stone gargoyles and I was like "yea well I'm a dex build, so...". I'm doing a decent enough job avoiding major spoilers, I've cheated a bit and checked the wikis once or twice about nitty gritty numbers stuff (like why does this boss-soul poison dagger do nothing? oh it has toxic). The sense of discovery in these games is cool, but there's also like, stupid amounts of content that can be missed.
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Jul 3, 2023 03:15
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 Requesting some build advice: As attached, I've finally decided on a fashion I'm happy with very later in the game. (To be decided if I can handle having 0 poise forever...), so I've been doing some wiki diving and am gonna respec, and would like some feedback. a) I like the poison build, using Mythra's Bent blade for now with the black stinger for reach. b) Previously huge success was the black stinger or short sword primary with a katana powerstanced for horizontal swipe. If bad comes to worse, I know I can drop back to that, and equip some heavier armour. c) Other options include Ricardo's rapier (currently at +0) for either poison or raw dps? d) Have been abusing the bow as much as I can, love it. So, ideas for respeccing and going forwards: I have too much carry capacity now, and only finally got some utility spellcasting for the Iron Castle (flash sweat). Am thinking of dumping most of that capacity and surplus Int into spell slots, spamming repair or optionally an enchant weapon, and maybe any other suggested buffs to simpleton's spice down? I like the idea of the repair spell and had previously been upgrading the Old Knight set lol. As for where I am, currently in Dranelic Castle and to my shame I had no idea how those golems kept being activated, I actually had to look it up as I was stuck and had been Forrest Gump-ing my way through all the doors previously. I also got down to the DLC(?) boss in dragon's sanctum, got splattered a few times by her Golden Knight summon and decided to park it for later.
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Jul 7, 2023 09:06
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Well yea, that and when I first decided on the look I was at 17% load, which is a liiitle bit overkill. I'm not even using powerstance with that setup as the weapon ranges are so disimilar, I feel like I've "missed the point" somehow with a dual-wielding dex guy, like I should be using curved swords or something. Also I popped back into the sleeping giant forest quickly, and accidentally got my 0-poise rear end murked by a few hollow soldiers as I forgot they treat their swords like rapid-fire spears at times. It really pointed out the scaling the game has; your hp doesn't really go up much from lvl 20->120, but your dps sure does, so early game enemies might die in a single shot but they can still hit hard. It's weird. Also I'm not sure there's much point in levelling up random stats anymore, as the wiki points out that the returns are nil, and so I'd have to branch out into new domains like more casting or Str or something. Guess I'm spending most of my souls on buying titanite now, which is fine. Oh, and all of a sudden my bonfire warp menu blew up, there's a ton of greyed out locations in the main selection, not just the sub-location choices. Might have had something to do with poking my head into the Icy Domain (dlc?), but it's ugly and spoiler-riffick. Serephina fucked around with this message at 16:05 on Jul 7, 2023 |
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Jul 7, 2023 16:03
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I just got the maneater sword, which made me cry out "where have you been my entire life" so I'm double-handing that and the stinger. Not powerstancing them, interestingly despite having the stats, as I like to swap between the movesets. I'm considering using a bonfire aesthetic for the first time to get a second mythra's dagger, as it doesn't really combo well with the bigger swords but I love what it does and think powerstancing might be good for it. The twist with the King was a bit... uh huh, ok what? I mean, I'm gonna keep doing what the nice lady says as it's a video game and I have no free will and all, but I'm kinda lost on what is supposedly driving the player character other than boredom and a lust for violence. The PC is going to forget themselves unless... something or something.
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Jul 13, 2023 04:58
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Why the flat spread of stats, are you using those mundane infusions I keep hearing about? All those elements are cool but you can't swing every sword at once; even after I've fully committed to poison I still have like three weapon loadouts depending on the fight.
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Jul 14, 2023 04:59
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Had to use a guide to find the hidden bonfire near the Mythra poison queen bossfight, but in the end got my second copy of her dagger... and a bonus +2 ring from the boss? All this talk of NG+ stuff, is there a list of items that can only be acquired via burning ascetics?
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Jul 14, 2023 10:08
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goblin week posted:everything NG+ can be gotten with ascetics, excepting for: Yea, but is there any gear I should be burning ascetics for to find? I'm still on my first playthrough, but if there's like a ring of really useful +2 or a totally awesome light armour set or bow I'd to know about it. edit: I mean, I could trawl the wiki looking at every single item and spoil myself on a ton of stuff, which is why I'm asking here.
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Jul 14, 2023 10:28
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I was firmly past 1M and opened the gates to Drangelic before beating even two of the bosses. I was also too stupid to figure out how to open the front door so uh
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Aug 3, 2023 02:20
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Shame, I never finished this game. Had a too-hard boss fight at the end of a long walkway under the Castle, some unfinished DLC, and was working on the Giant Memories (which makes me feel I was very close to the end), but I'd started the game right after finishing DS:R and didn't have the endurance to finish it. Don't really want to go back now either, as I'm rusty and having to jump into a hard boss fight near the end of the game isn't gonna go well for me. Might try out DS3 next year sometime, anyone care to spoiler the ending / what's the deal with the king and the lady pushing you forwards?
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Aug 22, 2023 01:54
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Elden Lord Godfrey posted:Santier Spear is very fun and also very easy to play. Twinblades are not good, only one or two specific ones are as they break away from the unsuable default nature of the group.
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Feb 22, 2024 05:10
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Oh gently caress yea, they're cool as heck, which is why it's such a crying shame that they sucked so much after I enchanted a few up.
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Feb 22, 2024 08:48
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axolotl farmer posted:DS2 is incredibly broken by speedrunners and the weirdest challenge runners. Super impressive, thanks for that. I quit out of DS2 at the throne of want so I should probably read up on what aldia was doing as a final boss. But on a different note, what the hell is with the file corruption, doesn't the Windows OS use a file lock to prevent that very thing?
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Mar 26, 2024 16:05
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I think it was only the lines about bonfire ascetics? The rest are Stanley originals as far as I can tell. But yea you can instantly notice the drop in quality, the narrator's voice was all about inflection which was lost.
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Apr 2, 2024 09:03
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Please do not raise your roll-stat before your hp-stat, otherwise death spirals in the early game will be a very real thing. Losing up to 50% of your maxhp when you're struggling with a particular area quickly means you drop into one-shot range for some basic zombie combos, if you raised something other than hp. The roll can come later.
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Apr 16, 2024 23:04
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I think we're disagreeing on what 'early' means. Pre-Pursuer, the lothric soldier zombies can chain hits on you lethally if your max is down to 50% and took a single hit elsewhere, making it so that every hit calls for a flask usage, which can be miserable. It's a very specific fail-spiral that I'm sure many are gud enough not to see, but it's there.
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Apr 16, 2024 23:21
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Note that agi only affects i-frames, the smoothness and distance of your roll is independent of that, based rather on your carry weight, edit: wow did I misremember that. Serephina fucked around with this message at 01:26 on Apr 18, 2024 |
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Apr 18, 2024 00:12
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| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 15:18 |
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Whoops, I'm totally wrong. Fat rolls at 70%, smooth scaling under that. In my defense, I did ds2 as a lightweight character and so I got to really enjoy not stressing about .1lb differences breaking some arbitrary threshold.
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Apr 18, 2024 01:29
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