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

[bkbroiler]

Ironically, the area right before that, the Gutter, is the best in the game.

It's insane to me that they basically took my least favorite area from Dark Souls 1, even without the framerate problems, and made it my favorite area of Dark Souls 2. I think the torch mechanic pretty much made the entire difference.

 

I like Black Gulch, if only because it's pretty. It's also short, and you don't have to kill any of the statues, really. Hardly any of them hit you.

[Stuart]

This game ain't that bad. I hated my time in the forest, but after that, it's the best shit. Foggy forest is probably the best part so far for me, imo. The atmosphere and sound design is exceptional, got some Silent Hill flashbacks. 

[SilentBtAmazing]

I probably had the most fun in the Heide Klum Flametower. Just the Anor Londo appearance and how super tough those guys seemed when I got to them, also that's where I thought co op was really fun for me.

[Sno]

It's insane to me that they basically took my least favorite area from Dark Souls 1, even without the framerate problems, and made it my favorite area of Dark Souls 2. I think the torch mechanic pretty much made the entire difference.

 

I like Black Gulch, if only because it's pretty. It's also short, and you don't have to kill any of the statues, really. Hardly any of them hit you.

There's a few other spots where the torch ended up being surprisingly useful, like the Shrine of Amana and the poison filled caverns in Harvest Valley. I seriously can't imagine trying to do a 100% clear of Shrine of Amana without a torch to see the outline of the walkable surface under the water.

 

Though having a torch there plays with some area mechanics in some other fun ways too. The women who sing say they "make the little ones dance" and that this brings peace to the hollows there. You'll notice the fireflies that appear over the hollows while there is singing present. The hollows won't attack you while that is the case, but a torch can scare away the fireflies. The hollows will also attack you from further away when you have a torch out.

 

Edit: By the way, the Rat King Covenant summons are the most annoying thing ever.

Don't even bother trying to fight, just run as fast as you can and be mindful of ranged attacks. Rat King players have gotten so good at stacking the deck against summons that you will just never win that fight. Just run the gauntlet and try to escape, you at least have a chance that way.

[Bjorn]

Don't even bother trying to fight, just run as fast as you can and be mindful of ranged attacks. Rat King players have gotten so good at stacking the deck against summons that you will just never win that fight. Just run the gauntlet and try to escape, you at least have a chance that way.

 

I've found I generally have a chance to beat someone in the Grave.  Doors of Pharos are a different matter though. 

 

I saw a shadow last night playing with power stanced giant clubs. You didn't happen to be running around in Doors of Pharros at all last night?

 

 

So I tried them last night.  Takes a 90 Str!  It's pretty darned fun and effective in PvP, though you could be as effective with a lot lower stat investment.  I could crush Drakekeepers at the Dragon Shrine with a single hit.  I was laughably inept in PvP with them though.  I started counting a match as a victory if I could manage to hit someone a single time, which didn't happen very often. 

 

I started another new character to build around Axes last night and cheesed the Dragonrider right off the bat.  That's kind of fun and easy!  If you didn't know, you can

get him to fall to his death about 5 seconds into the fight if you haven't raised the platform in his room at all.

 

That makes starting a new character super nice.  Kill him, sprint to the Cardinal Tower bonfire in FoFG killing everything in the way, and you have enough to buy the Silvercat.  That gets you to the Grave and the Gutter, and you can sprint through the Gutter to get the first Fragrant Branch.  Open up the door to the Shaded Woods, and you now have access to every Old Lord path and you've only killed one boss. 

 

At this point, the only two weapon classes I haven't played around with much are the Axes and Reapers.  Reapers I have little to no interest in.  Axes are a weapon I typically love in games, but in DS2 they seemed to have both poor reach and slower attacks, which are a death sentence.   I think out of hundreds of PvP matches now I've only ever faced a single axe wielder, and have only seen a few in co-op.  Axes are interesting though.  They gain the most scaling damage from leveling a weapon up.  Most weapons gain very little additional scaling.  Many axes actually go up 2 letter grades when upgraded (I think a few Ultra Greatswords do this as well, but not a lot else), gaining several points of damage per level.  They also have some odd movesets when power stanced, sometimes being significantly faster power stanced than just held normally.  I'm going to try the Gyrm Axe paired with the Dragonslayer Crescent Axe and see how that works out.  The Dragonslayer's Axe looks kind of meh on paper, but I love the way that thing looks, so hopefully it performs better than it's numbers would indicate.  The regular Gyrm Axe, while classified as just an axe, actually hits harder than most of the Great Axes. I quit last night right after getting both the Gyrm and Dragonslayer, but even unleveled, this seems like a build that I will quite enjoy.  It will be interesting once I'm into some PvP areas to see how they handle.  Going to require a bit of a different tactic I think though, swapping between regular attacks, rolling attacks for a sweep and non power stanced attacks. 

[Sno]

I was running through Heide's Tower and was going to finish off Ornstein, which i hadn't done on this particular playthrough. I stopped just in front of the large round hub room with that large mob of Old Knights and saw a SunBro summon sign. I didn't really need help for the area, but i figured i'd help the guy get a sunlight token. Thing is, just as i finished summoning him, i also saw an invasion warning pop up. As he appeared before me, the red phantom came into view behind him in the middle of the round hub room. SunBro waves at me, i point past him at the red phantom, and the red phantom shrugs back. The invading phantom pulls out an Avelyn and is just going to hang back and try to harass us with projectiles from within the safety of the group of Old Knights.

Finally, the perfect opportunity to use a Seed of the Tree of Giants.

It was beautiful.

[Golden Calf]

Damn Licia is hard on NG+ ..... that force wave power she has casts SO quickly and seems impossible to dodge. She's killed me more times than Ancient Dragon.

[Sno]

I never actually got around to doing her special event, but she apparently uses Wrath of the Gods. I hate running into WOTG in PVP, it is so powerful.

 

The force miracles are supposed to be magic damage, i believe. Use that knowledge when preparing for the fight.

[osmosisch]

Damn Licia is hard on NG+ ..... that force wave power she has casts SO quickly and seems impossible to dodge. She's killed me more times than Ancient Dragon.

I usually stunlock her to death with a dagger. Bonus for using mytha's toxic blade to make it faster.

e: the soul memory thing appears to me to be wildly blown out of proportion. I get invaded every 10 minutes on the clock on my SM 12M character. It's harder now to use an overpowered character to continually invade people who are just starting out but that's working as intended as far as I'm concerned.

The invaders are all dark weaponed katana or santier's guys so I tend to just hop off the neares cliff or turn my back, not interested in trying to beat that on my pve guy.

[Sno]

I don't doubt, despite the soul memory mechanic, that people will figure out ways to do super optimized builds to still troll new players. Still, it seems like it will prevent them from doing it for very long, at least.

 

Regarding the matching, my NG++ character with a soul memory of around 13 million gets invaded constantly, but i'm getting invaded by the same guys over and over. (Same thing happens with the various duelling outlets, lots of familiar faces.) I think what happens is that the player base at the high end is small enough there are basically no priority queues and everybody is getting matched into anything that is available. It works though, there's enough people playing that it doesn't collapse in on itself. Regardless of where i go looking, there are people doing things.

 

I understand the Blue Sentinels have trouble at the high end though, with significantly fewer players running around in the Way of the Blue. For my own part, I usually switch over to Way of the Blue whenever i'm not specifically doing anything covenant related, i love having a Blue Sentinel show up. (It doesn't look like they show up if you already have a co-op summon though.)

 

The big issue i thought i was going to have with Soul memory, early on, was sunk costs in consumables and souls lost on death creating irrevocable level disparities in pvp, but it feels like it averages out with how much the economy scales up as you keep playing. A crippling twenty thousand soul loss early on is laughably trivial later on. As for the high-end losses, they don't really have to happen. I've had to make my peace with the ring of soul protection, because it costs me so much to level up at this point that i am never able to not have completely absurd numbers of souls on hand. (It costs me 300k to level up!)

I'd still argue there needs to be a better system than Soul Memory, i think it undermines a few key points of Dark Souls and creates some problematic edge cases, but it's definitely better than player level being used for matching.

 

It seems to work. Mostly.

[Bjorn]

Damn Licia is hard on NG+ ..... that force wave power she has casts SO quickly and seems impossible to dodge. She's killed me more times than Ancient Dragon.

 

Dagger, as mentioned, is fantastic.  Weirdly, the WotG for players is lightning damage, but her WotG is physical damage.  So pull out of favorite 100 percent physical shield and just block it if you don't want to stunlock her to death.

 

Also, pancaking her with a great club works well.  Just let your stamina recharge as she's standing back up, then knock her down again.

Finally, the perfect opportunity to use a Seed of the Tree of Giants.

It was beautiful.

Nice! I still haven't used one of those. I suppose it's high time I took a character into NG+ and quit screwing around in NG.

[Golden Calf]

I usually stunlock her to death with a dagger. Bonus for using mytha's toxic blade to make it faster.

 

Yep that's what I ended up doing. Fortunately I had bought two for some reason, and used the second when the first broke.

[Bjorn]

Got another great Bell Tower story tonight, but I jazzed this one up all fancy like to post on Reddit first:

 

I arrived in the Bell Tower called Luna to do my sacred duty and drive out trespassers who had set foot on this holy ground. I found a fellow brother hard pressed by a desecrater and his golden companion on the second floor. As I descended the stairs, the cowards fled! Even odds were apparently not their style. The other bell keeper gave chase, but I lingered. These fools would be looking behind them, not above. Sure enough, they passed directly beneath one of the holes in the rotted floor! I leaped down, ready to strike the killing blow and end their crimes! Alas, my aim was not true and I struck the yellow partner of the true criminal, crushing him to the floor and bringing him within mere inches of his life.

 

But before I could recover, the trespasser was on me, twirling a Santier's Spear with all his might, striking me about the head and shoulders viciously. Unable to escape, I perished, my job undone. As I crumpled to the floor though, I witnessed a most miraculous event! The ghost of my diminutive master arose from his post by the door and buried his axe into the left buttocks of my killer! The blow staggered him, but still he stood. His golden partner in crime attempted to aid him, but his attacks simply passed through the thin air rather than causing any harm to the master. The coward once again turned to flee, only to see the other Bell Keeper advancing on him. Paralyzed by fright, he did nothing and once more my master brought his axe down, this time into the right buttocks! The mighty blow killed him, and the last thing I saw was my own body entangled with that of my enemy as my sight faded to black. If one must die defending the tower, let him die like this, witnessing the power and rage of our leader before passing on.

 

tl:dr - Dude with Santier's killed me in the bell tower, but the phantom range of the Spear managed to clip the covenant leader multiple times, causing him to aggro on the host and kill him.

[Winnipeg Fats]

This is fantastic.

[eot]

This fight...

 

I can't tell you how many attempts that took. I killed Ancient Dragon to get souls to repair life protection rings (had to stay human to not get 1-shot by almost everything), then I had to kill him again in NG+ because I ran out. You have to be defensive, so the fight gets very drawn out (probably close to 10 minutes) and you have to really manage their health. Can't let defender buff, because he gets too aggressive, but you need him at almost 50% health to have time to kill him at the end, ugh. I was probably 1 second away from the revive completing, my hands were shaking at that point. I don't recommend doing this to anyone else, but I was too stubborn to give up.

 

 

[SilentBtAmazing]

I am much happier now that I am to the castle. I was so over leveled for Bright Cove that I couldn't really get much co op action.

I respect folks who play through this alone, but to me the real joy of the PvE in this game is the co op. In particular when things go all wrong and suddenly you accidentally aggroed eay too many enemies plus got invaded and somehow pull it out - or hell, even going down in a blaze of glory!

[Bjorn]

@Silent, you friended me awhile back didn't you?  When it popped up, I didn't recognize it from someone on the forums.  Just realized it was likely you.

 

I finally took a character into NG+ last night.  I was a bit disappointed at first.  My co-op partners in FoFG were all kinda douchey, just rushing through, not gesturing, not celebrating, nothing.  But that seemed to go away once I was out of there.

 

The red phantoms and upgraded loot are keeping things interesting.  A couple of the new phantoms have literally scared the shit out of me. 

That new sickle phantom behind the breakable wall in Harvest Valley just about got me to shit myself. And in Iron Keep, there are two of those red captain monstrosities in the furnace room. Fuck those guys, they are meaner than some bosses.

 

I am super disappointed that I haven't been invaded.  Cleared 5 and a half areas, and not a single invasion.  Though I did see an invader in someone elses world.  I even wore the string ring for awhile to try and encourage getting invaded.

[SilentBtAmazing]

@Bjorn yes probably, I will sometimes click on the IT Steam group and invite people whose names I recognize from here.

That's a bummer about NG+ and invasions, I have had some recent fun experiences. Right now I am keeping two Caestuses equipped in slot 2 so I can power stance in PvP when I get invaded. It usually doesn't work out great for me due to suckiness, but is pretty fun and sometimes you can tell the other person is weirded out which makes me laugh.

[Bjorn]

Cool, just got around to accepting the request!

 

Oh, I've been messing around with elemental resists the last couple of days.  I had not realized that elemental resists are a straight percentage reduction.  500 fire defense cuts down 50 percent of fire damage.  1000 fire defense makes you immune to fire damage (possible with stucking buffs and water).  I've switched over my armor and rings for PvP to focus almost solely on on elemental defenses, only keeping heavy gauntlets on for some base poise.  I've mostly found that I do not lose very often to straight melee builds.  I can outplay, or at least equal, the damage that a lot of melee builds do.  But if I screw up once against a magic/hex user or someone buffing a dark weapon with more dark, the fight is basically over.  So I'm starting a fight with the Dispelling Ring, Dark Ring, Magic Ring and Third Dragon.  If an opponent doesn't look magic based at all, I'll quickly swap out the Dark/Magic rings for offensive (Blades and/or Chloranthy).  And I'm otherwise wearing light armor with good elemental.  My base defenses are now all around 500, and buffed with magic barrier, jump up to 650.  Once I can spice down GMB, I'll have it up to 750.  I really hadn't realized just how much magic damage you can neutralize.  I've also shifted some points out of my damage stats and into Int/Faith to raise my base elemental defenses and give me some options for some defensive spells.  Overall I'm really happy with how this is working out.  Eating a hex/spell to the face and only losing about a quarter of my health (rather than 3/4) is really satisfying.  I do wish there as a bit more variety in the clothing with high elemental resists, but you're pretty limited on putting together some Fashion Souls if you want excellent defenses against magic.

[eot]

Fought Darklurker and finished my SL1 run. Still love that fight, the only one from this game I'd rate equal to my favourite DkS bosses. It's one of the few challenging fights that doesn't make you rely on reflex dodges. In that sense in reminds me a bit of Kalameet. Having to use an effigy is dumb though, and dark chasm of old is a nightmare worse than the boss. I think I'm done with this game for a while now, time to play something else!

[Bjorn]

Fought Darklurker and finished my SL1 run. Still love that fight, the only one from this game I'd rate equal to my favourite DkS bosses. It's one of the few challenging fights that doesn't make you rely on reflex dodges. In that sense in reminds me a bit of Kalameet. Having to use an effigy is dumb though, and dark chasm of old is a nightmare worse than the boss. I think I'm done with this game for a while now, time to play something else!

 

Nice, congrats!  An SL1 run is still something I've never tried.  Not sure I ever will, seems like it would alternate between being super tense and super tedious.  How did you go about doing it?  I know you've mentioned fighting some specific bosses, but was your only weapon you could rely on a 2-handed club?  Did you have to bonfire ascetic some bosses to get rings, like the Southern +2 to have some pyromancies on hand?

 

I still haven't been invaded in NG+.  I am so bummed about this.  Apparently I need to become a sinner so at least Blues will invade me. 

[osmosisch]

I finally took a character into NG+ last night.  I was a bit disappointed at first. [...]

I am super disappointed that I haven't been invaded.

Wow, what the hell. Is your SM super low or something? I'm getting invaded the moment the timer is up every time. My SM is stupid high though, getting close to 10M.

[eot]

Nice, congrats!  An SL1 run is still something I've never tried.  Not sure I ever will, seems like it would alternate between being super tense and super tedious.  How did you go about doing it?  I know you've mentioned fighting some specific bosses, but was your only weapon you could rely on a 2-handed club?  Did you have to bonfire ascetic some bosses to get rings, like the Southern +2 to have some pyromancies on hand?

I did NG+ Chariot for the Cloranthy Ring +2 but that was the only one (aside from Ancient Dragon just for souls). In Dark Souls I used Pyromancy quite a bit, so I decided I wouldn't this time. Just melee, so it was Mace all the time except for Royal Rat Authority which I used a Broadsword for (that fight wasn't too bad this time). The Mace is one of the best weapons in the game so damage isn't a problem (especially since you can spend hundreds of thousands of souls on resins). Most bosses also 1-shot you, so you might as well use RTSR for even more damage. I've heard that Najka is quite hard in NG+ so I don't mind not having to do that, or Lost Sinner for Flame Weapon. I did use poison in a few spots, like the Mastodons outside Drangleic Castle, but not on bosses. Throwable items are quite powerful in this game actually, I think you could make some fights (like the Gargoyles) quite easy by turtling behind a shield and just tossing stuff. I did a massive wordfart about all the bosses in case someone is curious.

 

The fun thing about doing the run is having to learn the boss fights, if the fights are fun! It can make you appreciate some bosses more when you have to know all their moves and how to defend against them. Best example for me was Kalameet, a fight I didn't think much of on my first playthroughs, but he actually has a very varied and cool moveset. Now it's one of my favourite bosses. Worst part is having to clear out places like the Undead Crypt.

[SilentBtAmazing]

Pure melee sounds super tough, but I am not very good at this game.

I am having a lot of fun at the Shrine of Amana, co opping like crazy. I get invaded constantly (in NG somewhere around SM 2.2m). Some of the invaders have had super clever (and annoying) positioning, which I didn't previously notice. For example the distance between the first and second bonfires in that zone is far enough where one guy would kill me near the second one, then I had to fight all that way again -- just as the timer ran out and the dude is killing me once more.

I will say, I think invaders are ok when they actually fight you on similar terms - eg, using a setup that somewhat resembles a PvE setup - but they're basically just griefers most of the time and are running poison and other shit that people PvEing are just not going to be geared against. It makes me feel not super bad to die in those circumstances but I sort of wish I could swap my gear out and then revenge invade them back and see how it goes.

Maybe when I get to NG+ I can try to invader bait a little more but I am still trying to play mostly blind. As a result I am wearing a lot of the more cautious stuff so that when the cyclops comes storming up out of nowhere I have a chance to survive. In my case that means medium armors mostly. I liked RPing Havel in the last game but I see that set so much that I don't even want to pick it up.

[eot]

That's a real evil place to invade. You should see if you have a seed of a tree of giants turn the tables. Go back to the 3rd bonfire in FoFG and the giant/tree there might give you one, 10% chance for each time you get invaded.