Topic: Dark Souls

[Blue Valkyrie]

Maybe but the areas were so lazily designed, re-skinned Dark Root Garden and Oolacile Township was just a watered down Undead Burg, while the Abyss was a slightly less cheap version of the Tomb of the Giants (slightly).

Overall DS II's DLC are individually superior, the level design for all three are superb and they are all different.While the mobs are a little samey and some of the bosses are hit and miss. Well...all I can say is Fume Knight and Aava. two of my favorite bosses in souls ever. 

Honestly I enjoyed the NG+ runs more than NG, I found the challenge refreshing and I started approaching each threat in different ways rather than "Draw enemy or charge in swinging". Again just my take, still PvPing like mad in Dark Souls II and occasionally running the whole game with friends in Co-op.

[Flame]

One thing I noticed is that, for good or bad, sometimes it's hard to pinpoint exactly just what the hell DkS2 is trying to do.

IMO, that's because its trying to be both Dark Souls, and Demon's Souls, while half baking both, resulting in a very weird mishmash that doesn't have the strengths of either.

If it helps, I did the whole DLC in NG++, and I played through it in the mindset of knowing I'd be frustrated somewhere,

NG+ here. that must have been harsh. God knows NG+ Shulva murdered me the first time in. I realized it was a feature though, since all the enemies in shulva have unnatural poise.

The bosses, not so much.

I didn't mind the Shulva bosses much. Elana may LOOK like a Nashandra reskin, and she is- and Summoning a fake Velstadt is absolute bullshit, but she otherwise really fights nothing like Nashandra.

And Sinh was pretty cool IMO. And tense, since attacking him corrodes your durability. Ganksquad IMO was stupid, but amusing, given the joke nature of the fight.

The level design in Iron King and Ivory is definitely interesting enough, often brilliant.

IMo all 3 have brilliant level design, but Elleum Loyce suffers from it's interiors being ridiculously lifeless and dull. just empty rooms. even the bastille had tables and chairs in the servants quarters and [parasitic bomb].

I'd say they're worth slugging through, despite most of the bosses being really uninspired.

How are they uninspired?
Alonne and Fume Knight are pretty inspired. Aava isn't half bad either despite being rehashed as the other 2 later on, and Sinh is pretty cool despite being Kalameet 2.0. Even Elana is passable outside of her bullshit velstadt clone (I don't care about how "muh lore" it is, it's still bullshit and could probably have been handled differently if anything)

And ivory king is an amazing fight, at least presentation-wise.

I don't agree that they're among the best in the series, not even Sir Alonne, which is a pretty cool fight.

whaaaat? I honestly wouldn't put Either above each other, (Alonne/Fume and Artorias and co.) but I feel all of them are amazing Souls bosses. I mean, Alonne and Fume are definitely the best DS2 bosses IMO, that's for sure. It was refreshing, dying to fume a hundred times before I managed to get him down. He really is a battle of endurance. your biggest threat isnt him, it's you. getting greedy or mistiming a roll due to anxiety. Then Alonne, well, OIK's memory is bullshit and I hate having to go through a fire lizard gauntlet to get to him, but I like the boss fight, Alonne is fairly unpredictable, with long possible stretches of him just doing nothing, or in his parry stance, which again, adds anxiety and tension.

then again, that's all just my opinion. and the NG intensity WOULD make a heavy difference.

and not relying on recycled content, numerical advantage

what recycled content? Smelter cool ranch and Lud+Zallen yes, MAYBE gank squad if you wanna go there, but Elana extends only to 1 move, and the rest are hardly recycled content, unless you wan to count being similar to other bosses. (BIK being similar in moveset to Pursuer and Alonne being vaguely similar to Ornstein) Numerical superiority is hardly new to souls, though souls 2 definitely does it more often... And even then, personally, I find that despite some of that [parasitic bomb] they are still pretty enjoyable. 

 

But I guess because I was in NG++, the added Black Phantoms, overall enemy defense and boss HP were a little discouraging every time I died. It's like they want you to consider despawning enemies as a solution, but they don't necessarily understand how much of a bore that is if you're doing it on purpose.

well to be fair, the game is designed for NG and NG+ going further than NG+ is your own fault if the challenge becomes too frustrating. I know I entered NG+ before the DLC was announced, so it became a bit of a challenge to go through them, but after seeing how easy the areas were in NG with fully upgraded gear and high enough a level, im pretty glad I took them on NG+ for an actual challenge. I wouldn't dare go beyond NG+ though. not even for that one Ivory King sword that scales on NG's

[Blue Valkyrie]

I just finished my run on NG++++ the DLCs are still doable, nothing is one shotting me. Bosses hit like trucks but thats my own fault for not dodging at the right time or getting inpatient.

One thing to add to you're Fume point, another big threat he posses his attack speed; his animations are slower than most other bosses and that was a clever way to force us to adapt to a new boss, we are all so used to the twitch reflex dodging in the other three games it seriously made me jump when I rolled into his wide slash attack during our first encounter. The other bosses in the DLCs do this to an extent as well, like Smelter Demon 2.0, Aava and even the Ivory King to a lesser extent.

[Da Dood]

How are they uninspired?

Gank squad, Elana, Smelter 2.0, Wilykit & Wilykat. I dunno, it's hard to defend the DLC bosses when half of them have major rehashed elements. Especially since everyone looks forward to fighting bosses in Souls games. It's a big deal. The levels foreshadow these fights, they build the suspense and make us wonder. Regardless of the things the DLC does right, I see that as a missed opportunity.

In my defense, other than the really obvious cloned fights, it's not like I hate these bosses. Sinh, Fume Knight and Sir Alonne are really fun. Aava and Ivory King aren't so bad. I'm just saying most of them didn't blow me away in their originality. But I'm not a lore guy, maybe these fights have a greater meaning than I'm giving them credit for.

well to be fair, the game is designed for NG and NG+ going further than NG+ is your own fault if the challenge becomes too frustrating.

I think the game should be designed for the entire game. But anyway, it's not that the challenge becomes frustrating, because I do appreciate the difficulty. This is something I don't know if I'm explaining very well, but just to be clear, I don't have a problem with a difficult mode being difficult. That is usually the point, after all.

The problem is that my character is at the absolute peak of his strength and I barely scratch the DLC bosses. I did beat them, yeah, I can dodge their attacks okay, but my hits do not reflect the work that I've put into building this character. In Dark Souls 1, and especially Demon's Souls, you can keep building your character way beyond NG+ to make him/her ridiculously powerful. This includes stuff like hypermode, buffs, pyromancy and leveling up, all of them having severely diminished returns in DkS2. I have a SL1 DeS file at NG+8, my character is a melee glasscannon, and I can still kill late game bosses in 5-7 hits with the right setup.

I'm not saying the bosses are cheap or that their attacks are too hard to dodge, I'm saying that the 300 hours I put into building this character could have been more rewarding in this one aspect.

[Blue Valkyrie]

Speak for your self, my NG+4 character feels godly right now I don't need to kill bosses in less than ten hits to feel that. I'm honestly okay it's harder to cheese bosses now, that killed a lot of the fun of NG+ for me in the original games. Whats the point of upping the difficulty if your so strong you can one shot nearly every minor mob?

Seriously try casting firestorm on Phalanx in Demons Souls, it's moronic how easy that fight becomes. (Yeah it's the first real boss and is already easy, but it should at least be a threat in NG+)

[Da Dood]

Whats the point of upping the difficulty if your so strong you can one shot nearly every minor mob?

The point is that you adapt to that higher difficulty by being clever, which DkS2 does not allow (not to the same extent).

And it's not simply 1-shotting everything. You make increasingly tough sacrifices, such as having your HP at 30% or less most of the time in order to activate hypermode, being in Soul form in order to trigger tendency bonuses. These sacrifices pay off. The strategies change as the difficulty rises, which I think is really good game design.

As for what's the point of being so strong, come on now. If I'm dedicating 300 hours of my life to carefully building this dude, hell yeah I want him to be a goddamn powerhouse. That's like the one rule of RPG design. I don't want to crush bosses with my eyes closed, but I want my effort to be rewarded somehow.

Again, you guys are probably taking this way too seriously, I love DkS2 and this is just one thing that bothers me about it. You can't possibly believe that the game is perfect.

[Blue Valkyrie]

Again, you guys are probably taking this way too seriously, I love DkS2 and this is just one thing that bothers me about it. You can't possibly believe that the game is perfect.

You shouldn't assume what others think or what their thoughts are, I've raised my criticisms of Dark Souls II multiple times in this topic, go back and read my posts, I clearly don't think it's perfect. But I just don't agree with you're point of view. Don't belittle me just because I have an opposing opinion.

As for what's the point of being so strong, come on now. If I'm dedicating 300 hours of my life to carefully building this dude, hell yeah I want him to be a goddamn powerhouse. That's like the one rule of RPG design. I don't want to crush bosses with my eyes closed, but I want my effort to be rewarded somehow.

That isn't the one rule of RPG design...at all though. What about RPGs like the SMT series where no matter how strong you get the game can still curb stomp you if you make a mistake? Souls is like that in this reguard, yes you are stronger but the game should still be able to school you if you get over confident.

[Da Dood]

Don't belittle me just because I have an opposing opinion.

It's okay that you don't agree with me. Actually, it's great. I've never learned anything from people who know the exact same things I know. When you said that your NG+4 character feels godly, I was intrigued, because I want my character to feel the same way. If I'm wrong about my impression, I will gladly concede, because that means there's a solution to my problem and the game will be infinitely more enjoyable than it is to me right now. But so far, no one has ever presented anything too obvious that I might be missing. This sounds more like a personal preference where you don't mind the things I do mind. And that's okay.

So yeah, don't take things personal. This is a simple discussion, I'm not assuming your thoughts and I'm not belittling anyone. In my post that you guys picked and tore back there, I made it very clear that this is just my impression and that my opinion can change. That's literally the opposite of not being open to other people's views.

Souls is like that in this reguard, yes you are stronger but the game should still be able to school you if you get over confident.

I agree. But this still has to be done with proper balance.

[Blue Valkyrie]

It's okay that you don't agree with me. Actually, it's great. I've never learned anything from people who know the exact same things I know. When you said that your NG+4 character feels godly, I was intrigued, because I want my character to feel the same way. If I'm wrong about my impression, I will gladly concede, because that means there's a solution to my problem and the game will be infinitely more enjoyable than it is to me right now. But so far, no one has ever presented anything too obvious that I might be missing. This sounds more like a personal preference where you don't mind the things I do mind. And that's okay.

So yeah, don't take things personal. This is a simple discussion, I'm not assuming your thoughts and I'm not belittling anyone. In my post that you guys picked and tore back there, I made it very clear that this is just my impression and that my opinion can change. That's literally the opposite of not being open to other people's views.

I agree. But this still has to be done with proper balance.

Whats your build, if your damage output is lacking you may need to tweak something. Weapons, Armor, Spells, Stats, Ect...

[Da Dood]

I'm SL300 if I'm not mistaken. Melee STR build. My STR is through the roof, DEX is okay (minimum required to wield the Alonne Greatbow).

I'm using a Red Iron Twinblade, but sometimes I switch to Great Club or Greatsword. They are all fully upgraded.

Rings: Life Protection, Third Dragon, Blades+2, Cloranthy+2

[Blue Valkyrie]

Vigor should be no lower than 25-30 on NG++ and onward it will give you enough HP to at least take one or two hits. Armor like the other games isn't that essential but for a melee build and since your weapons are slower I'd at least try to work in some mid-heavy armor. (As long as your Fasion Souls are not negatively effected. =P)

I'm assuming you've got 50 points in strength? I believe 40 is when the diminishing returns kick in but 50 is best for a Melee build in my own experience. If you have no more than 10 points in vitality you can use Flynn's ring to get an extra 50 AR to increase your physical damage output, although you'll need to be more careful of equip burden. 25 or so points into Adaptability is typically enough for dodge rolling pretty much anything safely. Other wise you'll want to have your Vigor and Endurance really high to offset being open to counter hits with those slow weapons. You might also want to invest in the Stone Ring and Ring of Steel Protection+2 instead of the Life Protection and Third Dragon Ring. The Extra defense and the ability damage poise is very useful on your weapons IMO.

How do you approach most enemy mobs and bosses by the way? Trade blows, hit and run?

My build is similar, although it's more of a Quality build with a bit of Hex thrown in.
(Some of the stats might be from the crown, I didn't check.))
Ruelia
Soul Level 262
Soul Memory (blegh) 19485984
VGR 51
END 40
VIT 30
ATN 30
STR 50
DEX 50
ADP 24
INT 25
FTH 25

Black Knight Greatsword+5/Bone Fist+5
Bone Fist+5/Retainer Staff+10
Head - Crown of the Ivory King+5
Body - Black Robes +5
Arms - Drakeblood Gauntlets+10
Legs - Raime's Leggings+2
Ring 1 - Ring of Blades+2
Ring 2 - Ring of Steel Protection +2
Ring 3 - Chloranthy Ring+2
Ring 4 - Ring of the Living (To appear as a human rather than a phantom when in co-op/invasion)

Hope that helps?

[Da Dood]

That's really awesome, thanks. I'll check my build later.

As for how I fight enemies in this game, lately I've been using a combination of careful approach, sniping from a distance with Alonne Greatbow, and switching the melee weapons when it's more convenient. Doesn't help that they keep nerfing the weapons whenever they feel like it.

I think most of the problems I have with adapting to DkS2 is that I can't find a weapon I'm comfortable with.

[Blue Valkyrie]

I've found baiting out attacks first then attacking works best in NG+ since you can't really afford to trade damage anymore. Other wise drawing enemies is the smart thing to do so keep doing that, The three weapons you mentioned are all great Str weapons so you've just sorta gotta use the one that works best in the current area you are in. If you strike as an enemy or player are still in their attack animation you deal extra damage too so baiting and countering will help out.

Also since you are using large weapons with wide hitboxes try and group mobs together and get them all at once if possible, otherwise against bosses try to master dodging you'll feel godly after you avoid all their attacks. Otherwise don't get impatient or greedy and you'll do okay.

You said you don't have much dex right? Even so you may still want to use throwing daggers, they are surprisingly awesome.

[Kieran]

Oh, here.

Player info: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=332260039
Player status: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=332259937

This is NG.  The robes of judgment I have equipped are upgraded to +3; I have a mixed set of medium/heavy armor that's fully upgraded but I switched to this for the Fume Knight battle since it wasn't helping anyway (with the lighter armor I took maybe 20-30 HP more damage per hit than with the heavy armor), and rolling was a lot easier without it.  Normally I have the 3rd Dragon Ring equipped so I can wear the medium armor and have some more health/stamina, but I swear the latest patch has reduced its durability drastically, because it keeps breaking constantly now and I'm sick of having it repaired.

I have a fully upgraded Fire Longsword and Lightning Broadsword, the Majestic Greatsword is +4 (I'm having a very difficult time adjusting to that thing, and I might just stop using it if I continue to claw my way through the DLC), that King's Shield I have equipped is upgraded to... uh, close to max, I think +4.  Dragonrider Bow is +4.  My pyromancy flame is maxed out, but I don't utilize it too much at the moment, mostly just to soften up big enemies so they don't take forever to kill.  I've got a couple of upgraded maces in my inventory which I can't seem to get a handle on using, and a regular ol' Bastard Sword +10 which I was playing around with until I levelled up enough to use the Artorias sword.

And yes, I have beaten the core game.  I didn't start NG+ because I was waiting for the DLC.

[Blue Valkyrie]

Your stats as a whole seem a little too spread out, I'd recommend re-locating some points into Strength and Dexterity and getting them to 30-40 points if you want to switch between weapons. You'll get more damage out of them. Do you just use Pyromancies for magic?

[Kieran]

Yeah.  I don't use any other magic.

I'd considered reallocating some levels to Dex and Str, but I really don't know what I'd sacrifice to do so.  I can drop 3 points each in Vit and Adp without too much of a hit (I would still have 12 iframes while fast rolling with 23 ADP instead of 26 although I'm not sure how much I'd slow down otherwise), but that isn't quite enough to get both Dex and Str up to 30 each.  I kind of need Faith and Int for the lightning and fire damage bonuses (particularly fire, which was kind of weak until I pumped up the relevant stat to 20), and I'd rather not lose any more stamina than I already have by ditching the Third Dragon Ring, so taking points out of End is kind of iffy...

This is one aspect of DS2 I really do not like compared to DS1 and DeS.  You still need to have your "primary" attack stats in the 30ish range for them to do any good, but then you've got two extra stats that also need to be in the 20-25 range if you want to survive, so you are given far less leeway to play with the numbers than in the previous games.  Something or other becomes a dump stat purely out of necessity.

[Blue Valkyrie]

I'm pretty sure the bonus your weapons get off Strength and Dex out weigh the bonuses from Int-and Faith though. You could likely stand to lose some points from them.

I'd say lower them for now then pump stats into them at a later date (but if you aren't planning to use sorcery or Miracles then no more than 20 points IMO)

[Kieran]

20 Faith/Int is part of the stat requirement for the Majestic Greatsword, which is really the only reason I pumped those stats all the way to 20 in the first place.  (I really have no idea WHY, considering it does purely physical damage and only scales off STR and DEX.)  But considering what a pain in the ass it's been to adjust to, I might just consider dumping it in my item box and forgetting I ever found it.

[Blue Valkyrie]

Mostly because of the requirements of the Artorias Swords from Dark Souls, they were in turn references to the Blue Blood Sword from Demons Souls I believe?

Either way It'll be until the 200 levels before you start having solid 30s across the board. You could either just push on, focus on one weapon with less stiff requirements for the time being (putting the extra points from Strength/Dex/Faith and Int into the required stat) or use the Giant Lord Memory and increase the intensity at the bonfire prior to it to grind souls off the boss till you feel more confident in your chances. There is an item to raise it in the memory that gets restored each time you raise the intensity.

That last option will skyrocket your Soul Memory however so it'll be tougher to get Co-Op on the New Game server.

[Kieran]

I've been against the idea of going out of my way to make this game more irritating than it already is by burning bonfire ascetics.

In any event, I dropped 2 points each from Faith and Int and took my DEX and STR up to an even 30, then switched back to my bastard sword.  Also found that updating my graphics drivers screwed with the FPS limiter I set up and all of a sudden I couldn't dodge any more, but that's neither here nor there.

So I went in and fought Not-Nashandra and then immediately spent the souls I got out of it on replacing the points I took out of ADP, because god damn, I did not realize how much difference the 1/8th of a second those three points represent actually made.  Felt like my character was covered in cement whenever I was trying to heal or raise my shield after attacking.

For the record?  Not-Nashandra will not summon anything beyond the first pack of skeletons if you leave one skeleton alive the whole fight.  Then all you have to worry about is her casting Flame Swathe seventeen times in a row while a skeleton is trying to stab you in the back.

I have not fought Sinh yet.  I don't like the idea of trying to fight something that does double durability damage to your equipment when the PC version's glitches already do double durability damage to your equipment.  Bracing Knuckle Ring +2 and Repair Powder are going to be in order, I think...

[Blue Valkyrie]

Once you get his tells down he's not to bad, just try not to stay in front of him unless you plan to get out the way quickly. Not-Nashandra has summoned her clone of Vestalt while clone skelies were still out but that may just be a NG+ change. (Or I remembered it wrong )

I find the fight is even easier if you have a human phantom or ever Transcendent Eddie who is a monster of a tank. The other NPC summon isn't worth it though. But yeah repair powder isn't a bad idea, or even a backup weapon just in case. It honestly depends if he spams his flying attacks or not, that can draw out the battle a lot, try to cut off his tail it'll get rid of one of his annoying AOE melee attacks. Don't bother with lightning, he's oddly enough resistant to it despite being a dragon.

[Da Dood]

I fought Sinh with the phantom NPCs and yeah, one of them is a freaking tank, survived the whole thing in NG++. The other one RIP'd on the first half of the fight.

[Kieran]

Well, if I can't take Sinh on my own I'll try summoning Eddie.  I figured I'd just stick with the Bastard Sword, since it's my primary non-elemental weapon, but I'll keep the Fire Longsword on standby.

Makes me recall fighting Kalameet.  My loadout was such that I could still fast-roll with the Greatshield of Artorias, so given my love of defend-then-counterattack strategies, you can imagine how that battle went.  Sadly, I haven't got the stats to use any of the suitable greatshields for Sinh.

[Blue Valkyrie]

Don't bother trying to block him, his attacks are too powerful; rolling is the best way to survive. I believe most of his attacks will guard break you?

[Kieran]

Yeah, probably.  I just two-handed my weapon from the start.  Finally beat him on my... fourth try?  Had to summon Eddie, like you said, but I could've taken the bastard alone if he didn't take off into the air every time I got close to him.  Seriously, it's a little difficult to hit a boss when they spend maybe 5 seconds out of every minute on the ground.

In any case, the Bastard Sword worked well.  Even when Sinh's defense was boosted from summoning Eddie, I was doing 250-300 damage per light attack when two-handing.  Up that to 450 when I was by myself.  With the Bracing Knuckle Ring +2 on, I never really had to worry about the durability drain.

I've since left the area and started poking around Eleum Loyce.  I'm actually enjoying wandering around in this blizzard.  It's a much different environment than I'm used to in a Souls game, and the change is welcome.