Bjorn

Ah, that's a great place for you to explore then. Lots of good stuff down that road. The foggy woods are tough, but mostly just intimidating (and somewhat frustrating until you find a good solution to the enemies). AoE attacks are your friend.

You said you had 2 lord souls? If you don't use an Ascetic, I think there are only 7 or 8 Petrified Dragon Bones plus any you get from the crows until you are approaching the end game. I wanted my bow at +4, which takes 10 total Bones, so doing 2 bonfires let me get there. Before you get all four lord souls, there is only a single area I know of that has more than one Dragon Bone. One thing about using Ascetics, if an area has a boss, you have to beat the boss to use an Ascetic, and it will refresh the boss (meaning you have to beat the boss again on NG+ difficulty to use another Ascetic). If an area is part of the direct path to a Lord, you have to beat the Lord before you can use an Ascetic, even if the bonfire isn't the bonfire that refreshes the Lord. If an area does not have a boss associated with it, and the Lord associated with it is dead, then you can just use Ascetics over and over.

They made it so you can't take off the PvP covenant rings in DS2 once in PvP, which was a tactic a lot of people used in the forest covenant in DS1. Get summoned in, then quickly switch over to a useful ring. But with 4 ring slots, having a covenant ring on isn't nearly as punishing now. I think it would be too punishing to not be able to switch equipment in PvP. I don't do it a lot, but have occasionally. I try to keep my inventory really pared down, and if I get into PvP and see a hexer, if I have a chance to switch to a good Dark shield, I will. I've also been summoned in to the Bell Tower, and realized that my halberd was near breaking from PvE. I'd be hosed in those situations if I couldn't switch. There have also been a few times I've changed out to the Silvercat ring if I ended up way above an opponent, and wanted to be able to drop down without eating half my health. I don't know why they don't use a hybrid system. For co-op, make a match based of either SM or Soul Level. There are definitely some co-op places I really like, and would be glad to do longer if not for gradually moving out of soul range. And for PvP, use just Soul Memory for the first one million souls, then move over to using both memory and level. The logic behind Soul Memory makes some sense. It means that you can continue to have PvP and co-op even at high soul levels, which was something that didn't happen in DS1. But I'm one of the people who likes PvP to be capped, as I think it's more interesting when you have to pick multiple dump stats to build a character.

The best use of them is to get early access to some of the gear that is locked to NG+. But there are a few places where using them to farm spices or upgrade materials is invaluable. On my first character on the PS3, I farmed the crap out of Belfry Sol for spices, plus offline there is an NPC Bellbro invader who drops an Awestone if you're in the Company of Champions. So I was killing two birds with one Ascetic. In my current run, I was able to get 5 Twinkling Titanite and 3 Dragon bone early by upgrading a couple of fires. Unless you really need Twinkling or Dragon bone early though, it makes a lot more sense to wait until the endgame, when there is a much, much better farming spot. It slightly lowers all other defenses, but raises the infused defense, as well as adding that elemental damage to the shield. It's really just useful on a few shields that already have high elemental defense to get it at or close to 100 percent. Which, by the way, great shields do brutal fucking damage fully upgraded. Sure they are slow, but if your weapon breaks, or is about to break, it's good to remember that you can smack something with your shield to finish it off. Have you not infused anything yet? You don't need multiple stones. It only takes one stone to infuse a weapon, and you can do it at any level. So if you infuse your +10 Avelyn to raw, it will be come a Raw Avelyn +10. And you can change it to any other element you want without having to revert it (though there is a stone that reverts to normal as well). I've had more problems being underleveled than I have overleveled. I've been trying to keep my SM as low as possible on my current run, and it's pretty often that I get to an area and see only small signs, or no signs at all.

Quite a few reasons, actually.

I deleted my original quoting of you, so as not to be confusing. Some options for dealing with casters, use the Rebel Greatshield. It doesn't have 100 percent physical, but it has very high resistences to all magic. Second option is to take a shield with good dark or magic defense, and then infuse it with magic/dark to really jack it up. Lets you eat a lot of magic as you charge into a caster. The lag on magic is brutal. I swear that I dodge something, and then half my health vanishes as I'm finishing the roll. On my very first character (faith/str build), I spiced the Intel portion of Profound Still down to the minimum and would just cast it at the start of all PvP. Seeing a caster make the dumb "What the fuck happened" animation and look at their staff as I murdered them was really, really satisfying. I'd say you haven't run into a good lightning bolt user yet if you aren't scared of miracles. Sunlight Spear and Greater Lightning bolt are both just murderously good. Lightning is way harder to use than hexes, but hits like truck. You've really got to bait someone into a bad move, or catch them unawares. I love the Avelyn, and hate it. I'm trying not to use it as much. But it's so good! I'm determined to stick with the Dragonrider bow on Donatello. It doesn't seem out of character for a ninja to carry a badass black bow. My Donatello build is pretty complete now, I think, barring a few more Petrified Dragon Bones to finish the bow and get the final versions of a couple of rings. I've ended up burning 4 Bonfire Ascetics to get a bunch of the material I need early to upgrade stuff. I'm still looking for an appropriate piece of headgear, but there is nothing as subtle as stuff like arm cuffs. RH: Fire Black Knight Halberd +5 for bosses / PvP, Mastadon Halberd +10 for regular enemies LH: Magic Dragonrider Bow +4 and Pyromancy Flame (mostly used for putting Flame Weapon on the Halberd) Helm: None Chest: Ironclad Armor +10 Arms: Butterfly Cuffs - hard to even notice they are there, kind of look like elbow pads and seem to really mess with people. Legs: Invisible Auroros Leggings - A bit more armor, but functionally invisible so doesn't break the Ninja Turtle cosplay Rings: Ring of Blades +1, Royal Soldiers Ring +1, Second Dragon Ring and Chloranthy Ring +1 or the attunement ring if I need more than one spell for something No shield 90 percent of the time, and if I absolutely must have one (looking at you Undead Purgatory boss), then I just use the Drangleic Kite shield.

Yeah, I don't gank, ever. I do PvP because I think fighting someone else is fun. If I just wanted to one-shot things in the back, there's PvE for that. I was in the Iron Keep tower. I would wait on the main level to be invaded, and if a second invader popped before I could get the first one dead, then I would book it for the roof of the church once I was sure the second invader was on the main floor. From the roof, they only way up is by the ladder. So someone was risking a halberd to the face to come up, and if they didn't come up, I'd snipe from the roof. Inevitably something would give, and one of them would make a move. If nothing else, they would move far enough apart that I would be able to go after one and get a few shots in before retreating again. It also seems like people tend to forget about plunging attacks If you've got ranged attacks and someone is chasing you up a ladder, you can drop off the ladder, then target them and unload. I've yet to see anyone who was prepared to deal with that, most of them freeze as soon as you drop past them. I like that bell tower because it has the deathmatch like feel to it. Duels in places like the Iron Keep bridge or the platform the Pursuer shows up in at FoFG are fun, but the areas are so small that you really need an all out offensive blitz. Being able to run around and kite someone into a bad decision makes the larger areas more fun for me. I think when people have backup, it also makes them much more likely to make a bad decision, like chasing me around a blind corner into a Chaos Firestorm or exhausting their stamina completely. I'm glad I haven't run into someone using Corrosive Urns or the corrosive pyromancy. That would destroy me. Running around as Donatello is stupid fun, but the weight of that Turtle Armor is crushing. It's really not that good of armor given the 29.5 weight on it. I guess I don't know if the backstab immunity has saved me or not. Possible it has. I did briefly do Rat Covenant, as it seemed appropriate for my Ninja Turtle to be allied with Splinter the Rat King. That covenant just isn't very much fun for me though. I was too high on Soul Memory to pull many people in the Grave. And in the Doors, the first two people I pulled weren't even capable of getting past the first two enemies. I just hung back and watched the Mastadon slaughter them. I was trying to be nice and let them get free of the environmental enemies before dueling them. I did get sucked into someone else's world in the Grave who had activated ALL of the traps. I was excited as I had never seen what was on the other side of the bridges. I managed to walk off the side of the fucking bridge sidestepping a rat. I still don't know what's on the other side.

First spoiler, that was probably my favorite of the optional areas. Hard to find, mysterious, great NPC, difficult to get through. On the second spoiler: I spent a chunk of time in the Bellbros last night, but not the way your are supposed to. I think I have more fun killing Bellbros, both in my world and helping others, than I do being a bro. It's ridiculously satisfying to take on two guys and beat them both by myself (pulled that off twice last night, beat one out of two a bunch of times). Bellbros are so used to ganking people with help, they don't seem at all ready for someone who is prepared for them. My favorite one though was actually a one-one-one archery duel. She had a greatbow and I had the Dragonrider bow. We were each down to only being able to take one more shot, and she managed to tag me. Even losing, that was a ton of fun, as I don't run into bow users very often.

I don't think we have a dedicated thread around here for when politicians try to meddle in the gaming business, seems like the kind of thing we ought to have. If I'm wrong, please point me in the right direction (I didn't find anything). The big news this week is of course about Leland Yee, one of the anti-gaming crusaders of the last few years, and one that has claimed that games lead to violence. And now one of the crimes he's accused of is illegally trafficking in guns. Delicious schadenfreude.

I need to order it, probably sooner than later. He's actually local to me, lives in Kansas City. He doesn't do many events here, but for each new release he always does a reading and my wife gets a kick out of those. Preordering the book from a particular local independent bookstore is the ticket to the reading. The reading for Cold Days was actually delayed by several months because he fell terribly ill and ended up hospitalized, then had to carry on with all his other events before being able to get back to KC. Which turned out to make for a nice reading, since everyone there had read it and he was able to discuss the book really frankly without any risk of spoiling it for anyone. Hopefully he has no health issues this time around!

Yep, that's the point where the bonfire ??? unlocked for me, not sure if there is a reason it happens or not, honestly. And if you accidentally even unequip that ring, then re-equipped it, you don't get the spells back. FUCK THAT FIGHT! I had more problems with it than any other, even after I figured out what to do.

Midichlorians 2048: The Jedi making puzzle game.

The Black Knight Halberd feels like it is degrading faster than any other weapon I've used. I'm wondering if halberds in general are taking extra durability hits, like they are counted as striking enemies multiple times or something. The BHK broke on me during the Ruin Sentinel battle! It was probably at 60 of 70 durability when I started, and broke two-thirds of the way through. It was a bit tense switching over to my backup weapon.

What boss (spoiler if need be)? Past a certain point, the travel screen actually shows you all the bonfires you are missing with the ??? on them. As for the attunement slots, are you sure you didn't have a piece of gear on giving them, and accidentally swapped it out? There are both hats and rings that give slots. I tried to be an invader tonight, and I just don't have it in me. I like it when I run into someone comparable who gives me a good fight, but then I feel terrible when I hit someone who is clearly not ready to face PC invaders and demolish them. The Bellbros don't bother me at all though, that's fun! Even though a lot of fights are weighted in favor of the defenders, it's fun that you can switch sides at will, bouncing back and forth between helping people get through and crushing their hopes and dreams. And lots of people tonight had white phantoms with them, so there wasn't a ton of just 2v1 ganking. I saw at least a few other people doing the same, as I would recognize a name, and then realize that they were an enemy and not an ally that time.

Crap, I didn't mean Bastille, you named the one I meant. That fast tracking upgrading in DS1 is kind of what I mean though. You had to really know what you were doing to pull that off, people weren't likely to stumble on it, whereas it's almost part of the natural path early on in DS1. And there is no fast track for Boss Soul weapons, not even a hidden, expert path. It just doesn't exist. You can get 6 Twinkling Titanite pretty early, but then those dry up for awhile without Bonfire Ascetic use. Ugh, didn't really mean to go down this particular line of thought. At any rate, I encourage people to take another look at the boss weapons once they are late game, there might be some surprises in there you don't notice at first glance. To be fair, if you go back in this thread, I said that boss weapons were TERRIBLE the first time I commented on them. It took awhile of playing before I realized what they were capable of. I'm also a hair disappointed that no one commented on my Donatello

Mad Men has all been a dream, a battlefield hallucination by Don Draper in Korea. The series ends with producers promising a new show revealing what really happened to him after the war.

Even people who are terrible at PvP can win in the Belfry at least 6 times, and you can get a slab there and a slab in the Bastille FoFG. In general, I just find the material upgrade progression to feel quite a bit different than DS1, accelerated in some ways and severely delayed in others, with neither being terribly satisfying to me. Maybe saying it was way off was too strong, but it is different in a way that I wish it wasn't.

Yeah, as a standard progression. Given that both of the areas that you can initially go each have a separate path that leads to the Bastille, I would assume that a majority of players would go through it as their 2nd or 4th area (either straight from the Forest, or through No Man's Wharf). So just use that as shorthand for as soon as the 4th named area.

I'm not saying you should be able to hit max level on the Twink/Boss weapons by the Lost Bastille, but it's weird to me that for many players, the option to fully upgrade one won't even be available until well after the two-thirds point of the game. Twinkling isn't as bad as boss weapons. But contrast this with DS1, where you could upgrade a Boss weapon to +4 as early as Sen's Fortress.

Okay...

Boss soul weapons in many cases are best of class weapons, or at least comparable to the best. The problem is that they seem to be designed for very late game and NG+. You're unlikely to have enough material to fully upgrade one until reaching a point where there are only 2 required bosses left. And if you screw around upgrading a couple to +1 or +2, you'll have to burn Bonfire Ascetics to upgrade one all the way. I honestly think the balance of upgrading Twinkling and Boss weapons is way off. I can take some of the best regular weapons up to +10 as early as the Lost Bastille. Most players have to wait until endgame to have a chance at fully upgrading either Twink/Boss ones (unless you are using Bonfire Ascetics), even though you can get many of them quite early. It's just a really weird balance to me that you can have the weapon, but not the materials to upgrade them. You can get a fair amount of Twinkling early, but you really have to know what the hell you are doing to pull it off, and use a Bonfire Ascetic.

Honestly, I think I would prefer every other year. I've spent months and months on every Souls game so far, need a bit of a break!

I'm a From fanboy at this point, so yeah, super exciting, but can't say that I really want to buy a PS4.

You'll see a lot more invasions once you move to NG+. There are a limited number of Cracked Red/Blue Eye Orbs in NG (maybe two to three dozen each with lucky drops). The only way to reliably get them in NG is to duel in the respective arenas for the Red/Blue Covenants. Unfortunately, the dueling arenas seem to either have a huge, or nonexistent, Soul Memory range. So if you are at SM 200K and want to get some invading in early, you're going to run out of orbs quickly. And then you're probably not going to be able to get more, as you'll be going up against SM 1 Million+ characters in the arena with much better stats, spells and equipment, guaranteeing that you'll lose a majority of the time. I think they fucked up with invasions. I don't necessarily want to see constant invasions, but I certainly want to see more than I am. I just created a new character last night and intend on actually doing some early area invasions with whatever Cracked Red Eye Orbs I can find, since there are lots of people that actually want to be invaded occasionally. Of course I'm not going to play fair, then I wouldn't be a red invader . I've only beat 3 bosses, and already have a Black Knight Halberd +2, will have it at +3 next time I play. My SM right now is 126K, should be just over 150K by the time I reach the BoB and get the Twinkling Titanite to upgrade the Halberd to +3. I'll only have about 10 Cracked Red Orbs, but it will be enough for a bit of fun. Once I'm higher level, I'll switch over to the Sentinels and try invading sinners, as it will be much more appropriate to the theme of my character. His name is Donatello:

The run from