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Dark Souls 2 (Dark Souls successor (Demon's Souls successor))

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Having a very hard time in the Forest of Fallen Giants this morning. I'm still trying to play as if this is DaS, expecting to roll quicker and have more i-frames, so I'm getting cut down a lot by weedy enemies. My health is now capped at 50%, and I haven't made any progress for an hour or more. 

 

I know I can get it back by using (not burning!) a Human Effigy, but I've heard there aren't many of these in the game. What's the true story there? Am I likely to run out if I just use them when I feel I really need them, and is there a finite amount? Any help appreciated :)

 

I've been using human effigies when i lose about a quarter of my health bar, and i've basically been having no trouble maintaining a supply of them. I pretty much always have about seven on hand. If you do actually completely feed through your supply, there aren't any places you can buy more early on in the game, but if you keep forward momentum through the game, you'll keep finding lots more. (Also, no shop keeper ever has an unlimited supply, i believe. Does conducting invasions still restore humanity? That might be the last option.)

Don't feel bad about forest of the fallen giants though, i had it a bit rough there too. I think you start out considerably weaker in DS2 than you do in DS1. Lifegems will help out a lot early on to compensate for your gimped estus flask, and some early points into adaptibility might help a lot with getting your mobility up. (By most accounts though, the gains from adaptibility fall off quickly and sharply. It soft caps pretty hard around the 20's, so probably don't focus on it.) Also keep in mind that the revised encumbrance system gives more importance to the entire sliding scale and not just the hard breaks. (My understanding is that the hard breaks are now at 70%, 100%, and 120%, but a 50% roll will also now feel significantly different than a 69% roll.) In general though, the roll has been hugely nerfed in DS2, and if that's how you played DS1, you'll have a harder time starting out. There's also just a lot of narrow paths and narrow corridors to contend with in the later parts of that area, it's not optimal for rolling. There's some shields available in the Majula shops that are pretty good for the early game, if you're not doing a two-handed or dual-wielding style.

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I've been kicked offline a few times by steam outages, definitely kind of annoying.

Also, i've started using the Mastadon Halbred, that thing is awesome. It seems to take extra durability damage though, it degrades very quick, so i've been using it as a secondary equip.

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I've been using human effigies when i lose about a quarter of my health bar, and i've basically been having no trouble maintaining a supply of them. I pretty much always have about seven on hand. If you do actually completely feed through your supply, there aren't any places you can buy more early on in the game, but if you keep forward momentum through the game, you'll keep finding lots more. (Also, no shop keeper ever has an unlimited supply, i believe. Does conducting invasions still restore humanity? That might be the last option.)

Don't feel bad about forest of the fallen giants though, i had it a bit rough there too. I think you start out considerably weaker in DS2 than you do in DS1. Lifegems will help out a lot early on to compensate for your gimped estus flask, and some early points into adaptibility might help a lot with getting your mobility up. (By most accounts though, the gains from adaptibility fall off quickly and sharply. It soft caps pretty hard around the 20's, so probably don't focus on it.) Also keep in mind that the revised encumbrance system gives more importance to the entire sliding scale and not just the hard breaks. (My understanding is that the hard breaks are now at 70%, 100%, and 120%, but a 50% roll will also now feel significantly different than a 69% roll.) In general though, the roll has been hugely nerfed in DS2, and if that's how you played DS1, you'll have a harder time starting out. There's also just a lot of narrow paths and narrow corridors to contend with in the later parts of that area, it's not optimal for rolling. There's some shields available in the Majula shops that are pretty good for the early game, if you're not doing a two-handed or dual-wielding style.

The shopkeeper near the 2nd bonfire in fallen giants sells them, has 10 i think? I haven't actually gone through her supply yet.  I also died a lot in the valley until towards the end of it pretty much.  I didn't have to buy any until I was attempting the pursuer.

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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.

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I think you lose a point of durability for each discrete thing your weapon touches on a swing.  The halberds all seem to hit the ground on their overhead strike, so maybe that's what's going on?  I had a similar thing happen with my halberd in the area with the hunchbacks with hook poles and dogs.

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That might be the case, that seems to be the theory going around regarding halbreds.

A lot of the halbreds/pikes/spears are really terrific, but it'd be hard to main them with how quickly they degrade.

My mastadon halbred is just preposterously damaging though.

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I know I can get it back by using (not burning!) a Human Effigy, but I've heard there aren't many of these in the game. What's the true story there? Am I likely to run out if I just use them when I feel I really need them, and is there a finite amount? Any help appreciated :)

Use one. I estimated there were 50ish in the game, but I forgot that certain enemies drop them too. I'd revise that up by 10 or 20. Certainly don't sweat using them, just don't knock them back like estus :)

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Given that a lot of chests will give you five at a time, i suspect there's probably a lot more than fifty. (Not counting random drops.)

Also, Dark Souls 2 is really long.

I guess i'm going around memory diving now. That's kind of neat, the way it's being used to expose you to some of the events the story has only implied, but those time limits are pretty tight.



Also, successfully defending either of the bell towers earns you titanite chunks? I was wondering why titanite chunks seemed so rare, you're obviously supposed to get them through the bell keepers.

No wonder nobody does proper invasion pvp in this game, the rewards with the rat king covenant and the bell keeper covenant are so much better. I finally saw a real invasion though, he caught me in a small cavern and i misjudged the height of the ceiling. My overhead halbred swing clanged, and he ohk'd me with a hex. Really wish i had that dispelling ring.

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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.

Right before

twin Dragonriders.

So yeah, maybe I'm at that point in the game where they show missing bonfires.

 

I have a ring that gives me +2 attunenment slots, and I don't recall unequipping it, but I guess it's possible that happened. Luckily I was able to beat the boss anyway, but it freaked me out!

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Thanks for the advice everyone, I'll get back into the game soon, pop an effigy and try again. I've pumped a few points into Adaptability (think it's at 10 now, from 6) and I'm already starting to feel some improvement, although that could just be my imagination :P

 

I'm also going to have a look at how encumbered I am. I have very few options now in terms of shields and armour, so I might just plump for my strongest shield and take things slowly. My girlfriend was watching me play earlier, and told me that she thinks I'm being cocky, basically. 200h spent with DaS will do that, but this is a different beast...

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You can get quite a few Estus upgrades early on if you know where they are, so if you can't make progress you can always look them up. You can also probably make a suicide run to get the ring of binding.

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I've had two upgrades so far, but I don't want to look anything up just yet, as I actually made significant strides this evening. After using an effigy, I blew up a turtle with firebombs - cheers for the tip anonymous message - and then fought my way through a few hollow soldiers into a fort with some familiar pressure activated elevators. Here, I decided to summon a phantom, pretty much solely to see how improved it is over DaS. The phantom very confidently led me down a dark passage to a fog gate, and before I knew it we were fighting a boss. Also before I knew it, the boss was dead, and I hadn't taken a scratch. I imagine greenpeace will be wanting a word with me, but I hadn't time to fret over that as the boss had dropped a key, which opened several doors in the fort. 

 

Now I'm happily exploring. Feels so good to have this whole new world to roam around in. This area seems big, and has plenty of nooks and crannies. Give me a nook and a crannie, and I'm happy.

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I didn't think this would happen, but as it turns out Dark Souls 2 has the dubious honour of having the most bullshit bossfight in all the souls games.

Royal Rat Authority

What were they thinking!? The fight was basically over 15 seconds into it on 95% of my attempts, and it took me an hour to beat it. Why don't the small rats take full damage from the boss? If you're designing something where the game doesn't play fair then maybe reconsider what you're making.

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I found that one really easy, just do the same thing you do with all of the towering Dark Souls bosses: stay between its legs. As for the rat mobs, there's a lot of boss fights in DS2 that come supported by large swarms of small enemies, or are in fact just swarms of small enemies. Having some kind of actual crowd control is way more important in DS2 than it was in DS1, you can't control the pace of these fights with careful pulling. Make sure you either have some aoe spells or a weapon with good sweeping attacks.



Also, did you guys know that Bonfire Ascetics are apparently completely permanent?

Every time you use one, you bump that bonfire's area up to the next playthrough's difficulty, resetting spawns and such in the process, that's the obvious effect. However, the bump allegedly persists into all subsequent playthroughs, and so the area you pushed into NG+ in NG will be NG++ in your NG+ playthrough.

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Regarding effigies: personally I just played through at half health and didn't really have a problem, in that when I died it was the result of not knowning what I was doing and using an effigy would have been a waste as I'd end up dying anyways. There's also a ring you can get really early that makes the health loss cap even lower so you'll stay at around 70‰ HP.

You can also become human again by being summoned by another player and if you're having trouble it can be nice to be able to practice a boss without having to worry about dying when you're summoned as there aren't any consequences. The early bosses are all really simple fights, but later on it can be nice to figure out what's going on in the encounters before trying them for real.

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Right before

twin Dragonriders.

So yeah, maybe I'm at that point in the game where they show missing bonfires.

 

I have a ring that gives me +2 attunenment slots, and I don't recall unequipping it, but I guess it's possible that happened. Luckily I was able to beat the boss anyway, but it freaked me out!

 

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. 

 

 

I didn't think this would happen, but as it turns out Dark Souls 2 has the dubious honour of having the most bullshit bossfight in all the souls games.

Royal Rat Authority

What were they thinking!? The fight was basically over 15 seconds into it on 95% of my attempts, and it took me an hour to beat it. Why don't the small rats take full damage from the boss? If you're designing something where the game doesn't play fair then maybe reconsider what you're making.

 

FUCK THAT FIGHT!  I had more problems with it than any other, even after I figured out what to do. 

 

It's the only one of the recycled fights that really bothered me. I like the new gargoyles, and enjoyed the Ornstein nod. But it took something as memorable as Sif, and then made it obnoxiously awful.

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I oneshot that fight going in blind because I was lucky enough to

one-hit kill all the small rats with the R2 of my two-handed halberd. After that it was just Sif but easier and more gross (fucker broke my rings with his puke)

The other fight in that category took me way more tries. Damn statues blocking my swings.

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I'm nearing the end of the game (I would assume!) after a good 65 hours, and

 

after getting a little bored with the rinse-repeat nature, the game suddenly throws some amazing things at you that were not seen before: going back in the memories of all sorts of dead dragons and giants. Levels with a timer and spoils to be had! That really shook up the gameplay and made me interested again. I appreciate how they saved that surprise for last, I'd imagine the urge was present to present it earlier. As it is, it's a good way to keep the game fun after dozens of hours.

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I'm pretty much in the same spot as you, but now preparing to go kill the last few optional bosses, trying to open up a few locked doors and find a few illusory walls, and...

Making my way through the optional Pilgrim of the Dark covenant questline.



Also, couple things about the memories:

1. Don't eat the giants' souls, Vendrick is weakened substantially by each giant soul you have on you. He's virtually impossible without them, apparently. If he still seems ridiculous with all of the souls from the memories, that's because you can find more elsewhere in the game.

2. Go back to the room where you fought the giant spider, do it! I loved that bit.

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I'm in exactly the same spot as you!

 

Don't know anything about Vendrick (yet), but I'm having a blast in the memories. First thing I did when I encountered the talking dragon is return to the spider room, because I remembered seeing the giant stone dragon there. My perceptiveness was rewarded with a cool frozen landscape. I've also started tackling the dark diving bits, which are quite challenging, but fun. Luckily I have a ton of effigies still, there are plenty to get in the main game.

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I'm in exactly the same spot as you!

 

Don't know anything about Vendrick (yet), but I'm having a blast in the memories. First thing I did when I encountered the talking dragon is return to the spider room, because I remembered seeing the giant stone dragon there. My perceptiveness was rewarded with a cool frozen landscape. I've also started tackling the dark diving bits, which are quite challenging, but fun. Luckily I have a ton of effigies still, there are plenty to get in the main game.

 

Wait, i'm confused if you haven't seen Vendrick yet. How did you get so far into the game without doing that? You must have his ring, right?

I loved the bit with the dead dragon's memory though, it's a callback to the intro of the first game, the arch trees in the background burned and destroyed in Gwyn's war with the everlasting dragons.

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Well, sure I met Vendrick, aimlessly wandering around in the room after Velstadt. I left him alone though, I couldn't get myself to attack him, so I have no idea if that's the idea, or how the souls of giants work into that. Since you know, either you've already played through it once or looked it up online. If you do neither, it's safe to say you know little of Vendrick.

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Well, i did try fighting him first, and after getting utterly ruined a few times in a row - and i don't mean he was just really hard, i mean that i was doing comically ineffectual damage and then being ohk'd - i looked around to see if i was doing something wrong, because there was simply no way i was going to beat him like that. Turns out there is a trick and he's very much meant as an optional boss. It's a fun trick, i guess, and i get From's logic; you use against him the souls of the people he waged a possibly illegitimate war with. Not sure i would have ever figured it out though, i'd probably have just gotten around to fighting him again, but with the giants' souls then in my inventory and never really putting things together.

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