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

[dartmonkey]

Thanks for the info Bjorn.

My Soul Memory is at just over 3.5 million and I'm at Level 172. Don't have much to compare it to. My guess is it's pretty poor but it's my first Souls experience so not too worried.

[Sno]

Okay yeah. Ancient Dragon might be kind of bullshit, but let's see if i can figure something out. I mean, i'd like to, but I just had him do his huge aoe attack as the opening shot of the fight like five times in a row. If you're supposed to be able to outrun that, you certainly can't when all you have is wall to your back. Definitely not digging this boss.

 

Edit: Alright, got it... Or... Eggh... I would have had it with one more hit, but i ran off the edge of the arena.

Dump all of your armor and gear, everything except your weapon. You need mobility. Equip any encumbrance rings and stamina-buffing rings you have to help out, and probably the ring of blades to help with your damage. If don't have any pine resin, go buy some of that from vengarl.

The second the fight starts, run directly at the dragon to coax him into using a ground attack instead of his aoe and just sprint around that attack and head directly for his back legs. (Don't use lock-on in this fight, it'll just be a hindrance.)

 

Start doing two handed swings on his back legs. He'll try to kick you, but it's a slow and easily avoided attack. When he leaps up in the air to do his AOE, sprint directly towards his tail, and then off slightly to the side. (So that the tail it doesn't crush you when the dragon lands.)

 

Generally, you need to be down about a third of the length of his tail to be out of the aoe range, and watch your stamina closely. If it bottoms out, it needs to fill back up fully before you can sprint again. If he launches his aoe during that cooldown, you won't be able to get far enough away.

The fight pretty much ends up you slowly whittling through his health and trying to avoid the instant kill of his aoe attack. Everything else he does is pretty much harmless. This is a lame boss.

Edit Edit: Alright, this fight is fucking bullshit. I've gotten so close so many times now, but sooner or later the positioning ends up off and the boss gets backed into the edge of the arena robbing me of a place to run to, it's just a mess.

 

If i hit myself with flash sweat, i can survive one hit of the aoe attack, and it seems it only hits once at the outermost periphery of its effect and three times at the center of the aoe.

I hate this fight.

O&S, i would say, probably destroyed me on NG+ of DS1 a comparable amount to the pain this is causing me, but O&S is an amazingly fun fight with so much going on. It's not that the Ancient Dragon fight is hard, it's that it's boring. The aoe attack is the only thing he's got going on, and it's so overwhelmingly powerful that it invalidates a huge majority of the possible strategies you could take into that fight.

Well, and the ambiguity of the aoe attack's range isn't helping either, fuck that too.

 

[Sno]

Edit: *Redundant post removed.*

[Bjorn]

So i'm at this point where i've started closely paying attention to my weapon's durability to try and figure out what exactly is causing my halbred to degrade so quickly, and i've noticed that sometimes striking an enemy will just randomly eat up massive chunks of my weapon's durability. (Like ten times as much as normal, huge durability damage, way more than should be possible even if we're assuming durability damage for each discreet object in the environment struck.)

I think breaking somebody's poise to stagger them out of an attack comes with a large weapon durability cost in this game, and this would explain why a weapon with high poise damage like my halbred degrades so quickly.

Also, i'm curious to hear where everybody is at with soul memory versus character level. Personally, my character just hit level 155 and i just crossed 3 million soul memory.

 

I was going to come in and post this morning about durability as well.  Interesting observation about poise break killing it, that's not something I've paid attention too.  Halberds seem to degrade faster than something like the club/mace, and I've wondered if it is because Halberds have 2 hitboxes, one for the blade and one for the haft (hitting with the blade does full damage, haft does partial damage).  If degradation is hitting both at the same time, and there is some extra degradation that comes from poise break, that would explain it.

 

If you want to see nutty degradation though, pull out a twinblade.  I decided to try them out last night, as the move set seems more appropriate to Donatello than a Halberd, and I have several varieties of them now.  I had a Stone Twinblade +10 and a non-upgraded Dragonrider Twinblade.  Each have 120 durability, and they melt like butter on a hot day.  In the Lost Bastille, I made a quick run from the Servants Quarters to Straid, killing 2 of the big guys and 10 of the little explodey guys.  The Stone blade lost 99 durability in that run!  The Dragonrider one lost about 80 durability.  I could just watch durability plummet during a combo, losing between 4 and 12 durability per kill. There didn't seem to be any consistency.  If you wanted to be a dedicated Twinblade user, you would have to keep at least 4 upgraded ones in your inventory.  Which is just dumb.

 

Unless you use Santier's Spear, the most unique weapon in the game.  I had never messed with this thing.  I know it gets equal amounts of praise/hate in a lot of forums.  Now I know why.  Once you break the stone head off it, this thing is murder incarnate.  It starts with 500 durability and this statue head stuck on the end.  If you fully degrade it, the head breaks off, it gains a new moveset and it gets infinite durability.  The 2-handed moveset is mostly the twinblade, but it gets the halberd dashing triple spin as well.   It is the single most powerful weapon I've used, and it isn't even at full power yet.  It's only downside is relatively low damage, but that can be improved by going with a Mundane build.  So I respecced with my lowest stat at 17.  Mundane enchants scale based on how high your lowest stat is.  The base damage is halved, then they get scaling damage of 50 plus 6/level through the first 20 points (3 per level through 30 points).  And I only had enough Twinkling Titanite to get it to +2.   On paper, that's only a 279AR right now, but the Twinblade spins just hit so fast and often you stunlock everything without a shield to death in one combo.  It has enough range that it can stunlock and kill whole groups of enemies.  Even most "big" enemies only took 2 combos to take down.   It kind of renders other Twinblades pointless.  Infinite durability and higher poise damage completely make up for the higher damage you can get with a build tailored to one of the other blades.   I practically sprinted through the Shrine of Amana and the Undead Crypt, only slowing down to pick up loot.   

 

 

Okay yeah. Ancient Dragon might be kind of bullshit, but let's see if i can figure something out. I mean, i'd like to, but I just had him do his huge aoe attack as the opening shot of the fight like five times in a row. If you're supposed to be able to outrun that, you certainly can't when all you have is wall to your back. Definitely not digging this boss.

 

Edit: Alright, got it... Or... Eggh... I would have had it with one more hit, but i ran off the edge of the arena.

Dump all of your armor and gear, everything except your weapon. You need mobility. Equip any encumbrance rings and stamina-buffing rings you have to help out, and probably the ring of blades to help with your damage. If don't have any pine resin, go buy some of that from vengarl.

The second the fight starts, run directly at the dragon to coax him into using a ground attack instead of his aoe and just sprint around that attack and head directly for his back legs. (Don't use lock-on in this fight, it'll just be a hindrance.)

 

Start doing two handed swings on his back legs. He'll try to kick you, but it's a slow and easily avoided attack. When he leaps up in the air to do his AOE, sprint directly towards his tail, and then off slightly to the side. (So that the tail it doesn't crush you when the dragon lands.)

 

Generally, you need to be down about a third of the length of his tail to be out of the aoe range, and watch your stamina closely. If it bottoms out, it needs to fill back up fully before you can sprint again. If he launches his aoe during that cooldown, you won't be able to get far enough away.

The fight pretty much ends up you slowly whittling through his health and trying to avoid the instant kill of his aoe attack. Everything else he does is pretty much harmless. This is a lame boss.

Edit Edit: Alright, this fight is fucking bullshit. I've gotten so close so many times now, but sooner or later the positioning ends up off and the boss gets backed into the edge of the arena robbing me of a place to run to, it's just a mess.

 

If i hit myself with flash sweat, i can survive one hit of the aoe attack, and it seems it only hits once at the outermost periphery of its effect and three times at the center of the aoe.

I hate this fight.

O&S, i would say, probably destroyed me on NG+ of DS1 a comparable amount to the pain this is causing me, but O&S is an amazingly fun fight with so much going on. It's not that the Ancient Dragon fight is hard, it's that it's boring. The aoe attack is the only thing he's got going on, and it's so overwhelmingly powerful that it invalidates a huge majority of the possible strategies you could take into that fight.

Well, and the ambiguity of the aoe attack's range isn't helping either, fuck that too.

 

 

Some other thoughts on this fight:

 

Get the Gyrm Shield (drops from the Gyrm in the Doors). It has innate 100 percent fire damage blocking and can be upgraded with regular titanite. Upgrade it as much as possible to raise the stability. If you 2-hand it, it functionally raises the stability, which lowers how much stamina loss you take. So you don't even need the Str to one-hand it. As long as you have at least a 16 Str, you can 2-hand it. Then you can actually tank all three hits of the AoE fire attack with it, though it will take most of your stamina.

I've only fought it once, and I killed it with lightning attacks. If you sprint to the right as soon as walking through the fog door, you will usually live. Then you just circle strafe him, hitting with the most powerful ranged attacks you have. If you can't get out of range of the AoE fire, 2-hand the Gyrm shield to survive the attack. Rinse and repeat.

It's a cheesy strategy, but that fight is NOT fun. I tried a half dozen times to do it by melee, and finally decided it wasn't worth it and I would try lightning. Usually I would make a few more attempts at melee, but I was soooo tired of killing those wicked little dudes on the stairs.

[Sno]

Regarding the theory about poise break, i'm not absolutely sure about it, but it does seem to coincide. The thing is, it seems to happen a couple seconds after the poise break happens, like it's applied on a delay. I've been in a situation where i've finished killing an enemy and after the weapon is back down by my side, i notice its durability gauge just lose a big chunk out of nowhere.

 

I've definitely seen a lot of people discouraging use of santier's spear, yeah. It sounds kind of dumb and game-breaking. Also, I didn't know two-handing a shield raises it's stability. That would probably help a lot, i'll have to try that out.

[Dewar]

So, I pushed through the fog, found the two dragon bones, and killed the next boss before my machine blue-screened for unrelated issues. Maybe it's because I'm overleveled for this area, but it seemed kinda tedious. My least favorite zone so far I'd say. It feels like it takes a lot of hits to kill anything, but nothing is really a threat because I can roll away from it pretty easy. Add to that the magic urns and the ineffectiveness of my lightning spears, and I was just annoyed by the end.

[Sno]

Which area?

[Dewar]

Shaded Ruins

[Blambo]

I'm only in the first few areas, but I've noticed that the way the game telegraphs the theme and story through environment is a little more subtle than in Dark Souls, maybe because the main points of the story in Dark Souls 2 are more explicitly stated. This might allow the environment to feel a little less dense and more natural, and I really like it!

[Bjorn]

I've definitely seen a lot of people discouraging use of santier's spear, yeah. It sounds kind of dumb and game-breaking. Also, I didn't know two-handing a shield raises it's stability. That would probably help a lot, i'll have to try that out.

 

I feel a little gross using it, to be honest.  I was just floored by how effective it is.  I do really, really like the moveset though.  It kind of blows when a weapon as unique as this feels so unbalanced.  I guess I could always just take it raw or infuse it and see if that makes it feel less grossly OP.   Or I might just respec towards the Stone Blade and farm a few of them.  I'm at the point of the game where materials are plentiful.

 

As long as I'm specced to Mundane though, I'll probably mess around for a bit with other Mundane weapons, try out a dual dagger build, the ladle and the work hook. 

[Dewar]

Hmm, looking over a brief flowchart style map (http://darksouls2.wiki.fextralife.com/Locations) I appear to have missed a great deal of stuff on the Huntsman's Copse branch of things. I guess I'm going to have to go back and run that area again.

 

Edit: I need to find a way to stack some more fire resistance as well. Flash Sweat and the Fire Resistance Ring aren't cutting it.

[Bjorn]

Hmm, looking over a brief flowchart style map (http://darksouls2.wiki.fextralife.com/Locations) I appear to have missed a great deal of stuff on the Huntsman's Copse branch of things. I guess I'm going to have to go back and run that area again.

 

Edit: I need to find a way to stack some more fire resistance as well. Flash Sweat and the Fire Resistance Ring aren't cutting it.

 

I am super disappointed at my search for Dark Souls Flowcharts.  Figured there had to be a few funny ones out there.

 

What do you need the fire resist for?  If it's to reach some difficult loot, some suggestions were made not too long ago in this thread, probably spoilered. 

[Sno]

If it's about the stuff in the Iron Keep:

There's a few spots in there where you can use lockstones to pour little puddles of water to roll around in, because in Dark Souls 2 you gain a massive fire resistance buff when drenched in water. You still might want to buff up your health and throw on some fire resist clothes/rings, but it makes it fairly simple to collect those items. Flash sweat in the pyromancy school also does the trick for a few of the shorter paths, but won't be enough to get you to the Chaos Storm spell. The water thing applies to every area of the game though, so don't forget that.

I finally beat the Ancient Dragon, that is the worst fight in the game. (Some of it is probably to do with me being a pyromancer, and it being nearly invulnerable to fire. I basically had no option for ranged attacks other than feeding through hundreds of arrows/bolts, which didn't really seem like a wise allocation of resources, so melee it was.)

I also heard it said that the game throws you into a post game phase before starting NG+, so i just went ahead and beat the last few bosses of the game and found myself right back in Majula with an option on the Far Fire to start NG+. So now i just need to go beat up Vendrick and then i'll start NG+.

I'm growing more convinced about my theory that poise breaking is causing extra durability damage. I was in the undead crypt fighting one of the knights down there, and i poise broke him out of his lightning sword attack and witnessed like half of my halbred's durablity evaporate from that one hit. (So it also seems to vary based on the strength of the attack you've staggered them out of.)

I'm also definitely still noticing some situations where it takes a few seconds until after a fight ends for a big chunk of durability damage to be applied to my weapon, there might be even more factors at work here.

Also, you guys know about the seed of the tree of giants, right? It probably doesn't need to be spoilered, it's worth knowing, but i'll do so anyways:

In the forest area, in the fortress itself, one of the corpses of the giants doesn't have a memory you can enter, but every time you're invaded, it had a chance to grow a seed you can go collect. That seed, if used while being invaded, lets you turn the enemies in your world hostile to invading phantoms. (Apparently including blue phantoms that have come to rescue you if you're in the Way of the Blue, so be careful about that.)

[Dewar]

I must have missed a huge section in Iron Keep then, because I don't remember placing any lockstones in there. I rolled through some jars that splashed water on me, and I thought that would count, but it didn't

Edit:

The wiki states that you need about 600 fire resist to get the item that I've already tried (right there by the bonfire.) The wiki also states trying to chug estus to keep you going. I had about 550 fire resist and I died in something like 2 seconds. It only took 4 ticks of fire damage to kill me, certainly not long enough to stop and chug estus. Am I doing something wrong?

[Bjorn]

I must have missed a huge section in Iron Keep then, because I don't remember placing any lockstones in there. I rolled through some jars that splashed water on me, and I thought that would count, but it didn't

 

The jars do count, they are the only/best option for a couple of spots.  But I *think* that you want to roll through the jars last and do any buffs first.  My experience was that rolling through the jars, then buffing resulted in my death, while the reverse let me get the item (and sometimes still die, but I got the item at least).  The water doesn't last very long either.  You need to haul ass, and sometimes it's better to put the Silvercat ring on and make some long falls to get to the items as quickly as possible.  Being soaked feels like it lasts 30 seconds, tops.  Maybe as little as 15 or 20 once you've hit burning ground.  As for the lockstones:

 

One is on the platform above where you get the Dull Ember, right across from the Zweihander. You have to jump to a broken stair where the ember is, climb a ladder inside the building and there is an archer up there. There is a Lockstone on the wall that fills up the pool.

The other one is in a weird location. If you pull the level that dumps the two Turtle Knights into the lava in the area with all the archers, it lets you get to a ladder that goes to a bunch of water jars. Follow the path around to the right, and you'll find another ladder going up. This goes to a room that if you step off the platform where you come up at, it becomes a one way trip, as you can't get back to the ladder. The only reason I can think that this pool exists is that you could use it as you drop down a series of ledges back into the main Keep. The next to last jump requires you to land on the edge of a pot of lava. I've never blown that jump, so I don't know what happens if you land in the pot. It might be instant death, but being soaked in water might let you get out of it as well.

[Sno]

I found that rolling through the puddle of water created by using the lockstone seemed to last for a couple minutes. There seem to be varying degrees of how drenched you can be. (This effect can be observed much more visibly with the pools of poison in the earthen peak, where if you are only partially submerged in the poison, the effect lasts for less than if you rolled through the pool of poison.)

[Bjorn]

That's certainly possible.  It was the easiest one to do for me.  But the ones with the jars caused me several problems. 

[Sno]

I found that i was actually able to reach all the item locations using the lockstone pool situated above the dull ember. (Clearing enemies out first, of course.)

[eot]

I couldn't resist pulling the lever. Weeelp.

[Bjorn]

From Software: Masters of reverse psychology.

[Sno]

I would love if there was a way to have some data about how many people pulled that lever.

[bkbroiler]

I'm going to say, first time through, 95% pulled it.

[osmosisch]

Thanks for the hint Bjorn, the blocking rather than trying to run strategy worked for me on that pain in the ass boss. I think that means I've done everything. On to NG+!

[dartmonkey]

I need to stop playing. I'm not enjoying it and i've done myself a mischief. This morning I spunked a dozen effigies entering the Dark covenant area to fight the optional boss. I only reached the boss twice, the other times I got my novice pyromancer pulverised by the dark guys or I rolled him into a crevice. I turned and punched my sofa in frustration and caught an improbably hard bit with the frame underneath. Wasn't too bad at the time, but now in considerable pain! It's only a game, it's only a game...

[Sno]

The Darklurker you mean? Pilgrims of the Dark and all that? He seems absurdly weak to fire, he shouldn't be very tough for a pyromancer, he only took me a couple tries. Like you though, I had more trouble getting to him reliably, but i think the Pilgrims of the Dark dungeon in Shaded Ruins is the easiest one to clear. (Once you've lit all three fires in those dungeons, he'll appear at the end of any of them.) Also, the merchant in the undead crypt sells a ton of human effigies if you need to stock up.