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

[eot]

I haven't played Demon Souls either! I'm eager to try it and perhaps I'll be wrong about that Miyazaki touch. A comparison that keeps popping up in my head though is Royal Rat Authority vs Sif. There's a sad story behind the latter (especially if you do the DLC first), and the tragedy of the whole thing comes through in every part of the presentation, the animation, the music and the arena itself. Obviously I wasn't in their design meetings, but it feels like their goal with that fight was more about the tone of it than anything else. Maybe there's a backstory to RRA that I don't know about, but it doesn't come across in the fight itself and it seems like it's main purpose is to be a callback to Sif. I was glad when it limped because I knew the fight was over. It's not entirely fair to compare one of the more memorable fights in the first game to a crap optional one in the second, because they both have crap ones, but still.

 

Going to start an SL1 CoC run now. Wish me luck :U

[Sno]

Given that an SL1 playthrough just on its own would probably be so much more difficult because of adaptibility, doing that on the CoC difficulty doesn't sound fun at all. (Have you spent any time with the pvp convenants, or just all CoC?)

 

Anyways, I don't think anything with the rat king covenant areas should be taken too seriously, they seem to be more about From's wry sense of humor than anything else. (Also, I liked that boss fight. )

Speaking of story details, some relatively important pieces only show up in NG+, though I will agree that Dark Souls 2 struggles a bit with tone. In Dark Souls, even when you had no idea what was going on, i think it was pretty successful in implying through its tone what was going on. It's evocative of a game like Shadow of the Colossus, i'd say.

[Roderick]

I did it! (Finishing the game after 79 hours, which was about four hours more than DS1.)

 

Nashandra was quite easy, I beat her the very first time I encountered her. Was expecting perhaps something a little more extreme. The ending cinematic did give me a little thrill, when those big doors closed on you, though after the credits you just end up in Majula again, not even NG+ yet. Hauntingly beautiful music during the credits! Then I rewatched the opening cinematic by Blur, and it's an amazing masterpiece. It sets such a mood, and works as a weird little video clip of its own. It hints are a narrative that's never heard of again (a mother and child abandoned, an old crone sending you off on the road to Drangleic), I've really come to appreciate it.

 

As for the whole game, in the final twenty hours or so I felt just a little bored by it. Part of that was due to being overlevelled (I finished at 172), but looking back, the world lacks some of the richness of the first Dark Souls. It misses that sense of location where you just didn't know what could be behind any door: an entirely new area perhaps? The teleportation chips away at your sense of immersion, and none of the bosses felt quite as exciting as any of the old ones. You'll laugh, but the stand-out boss for me was Flexile Sentry. It was such a weird and ominous fight in closed quarters that were slowly being filled with water.

[eot]

Given that an SL1 playthrough just on its own would probably be so much more difficult because of adaptibility, doing that on the CoC difficulty doesn't sound fun at all. (Have you spent any time with the pvp convenants, or just all CoC?)

I might join the bellbros to farm some chunks. I don't think ADP is the biggest problem though, it's some of the other stats. In Dark Souls you can use the Balder Shield, which is one of the better medium shields in the game. In DkS2 however there's only one 100% physical block shield you can use, but you need to 2-hand it to meet the strength requirement and it only comes after the dull ember. You have to 2-hand the Mace or Broadsword anyway so I guess it doesn't matter that much.

 

Beat the first four bosses last night, as well as Skeleton Lords. Since that fight took a bit longer I must admit I did notice the music this time . I thought it was pretty good. The fight is still the Pinwheel of this game though, easier than even Last Giant except for those damn bonewheels! They are the most bastardly enemy ever designed. The last two would always tag me, I finally beat it by killing them as they were spawning and screwing their heads on (literally). Also managed to parry Pursuer in front of the ballista and kill him that way, very satisfying!

[osmosisch]

Beat the first four bosses last night, as well as Skeleton Lords. Since that fight took a bit longer I must admit I did notice the music this time . I thought it was pretty good. The fight is still the Pinwheel of this game though

Prowling Magus and Covetous Demon are both easier in my opinion.

[Sno]

I think the Flexile Sentry is the easiest boss in the game.

And yes, the theme for the Skeleton Lords fight is awesome.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CZJN9avrms

 

Velstadt might have my favorite boss theme in the game though.

The

also has a great piece of music that i think most players would be likely to miss with how quickly that fight can be over, and nothing else on the soundtrack beats the

theme for pure bombast. There's a few other pieces i really like as well, i don't think the soundtrack is bad by any stretch.

[Bjorn]

Prowling Magus and Covetous Demon are both easier in my opinion.

 

The Covetous Demon fight is consistently hilarious to me though because you can

shoot down the poison jars above the arena to drop snacks (hollows) down, at which point Jabba will spaz out and make a beeline for the hollow to eat it.

 

Flexile Sentry is really intimidating the first time you enter the fog gate, before you realize it's a really simple battle. 

 

I'm messing around with another new character, and am finally understanding what poise does in DS2.  It's a really lightweight build, and I was consistently getting staggered like hell in PvP.  Poise simply determines whether or not you will get staggered out of an animation, it has no effect when you are not currently attempting an action, which is why small fast weapons can stunlock you if you don't get an attack off first.  This ended up making the Ring of Giants really valuable for this build, as I'm only wearing 2 pieces of armor with poise. 

 

I also took my Adaptability up to its softcap (38), giving an Agility of 110.  First time I've done that.  It's definitely noticeable, I'm rolling through attacks completely, or just taking partial damage, more often now.  Item usage feels lightning fast now compared to the typical sub-10 Adp that I've been running.  At very low adaptability, I've typically not been able to heal safely against the Pursuer, but with 38, I had no problems getting a heal off.  I'm still not convinced it is worth the points though.  For this character, that's 32 points that AREN'T going into Health, Stamina, or Equip Load.   If I respecced, I'd have 16.5 more equip load, 22 more Stamina and 304 more Health (assuming boosted by Second Dragon Ring).  That's a ton of value traded for faster healing and occasionally being missed on a dodge.  It and my offensive stats are all soft capped now though, so I think I'll keep it for a few more areas as I level up Vig, End and Vit. 

[Roderick]

I never knew that adaptability shortened animation times! That's sure to make chugging elixirs and boosting (Chris Remo^tm) weapons much less of a hazard during boss fights.

[Bjorn]

Throwing bombs and knives are actually fast enough to be useful at that level.  I don't know if the buff animation is that much faster, I never tried buffing inside of a fight, was just applying them before the fog door like normal.

[N1njaSquirrel]

I had 2 fun PvP experiences recently in my PC run. Seems like I'm getting invaded more in my PC run than I did on the PS3. Maybe being in the Company of Champions increases the summon chance? I have also noticed that the lag is worse on the PC. Anyone else get that? Any ways:

 

I got invaded in the Huntsman's Copse. Wandering on high alert, I noticed a pot that I was pretty sure wasn't there. (this was on the patch of ground next to the stairs which goes into the room full of enemies) I smacked it, and it started moving. The guy must have realised the jig was up, and legged it, back to the start. He got to near the bonfire, uncloaked, rolled, and quickly dispatched me in my confusion. It was all over too quick and I was stun locked. Do you see the health bar of enemies when they're using Chameleon?

 

In the Lost Bastille, I got invaded by a hex fella. I was in that pit where the dogs were, and managed to kill them and the crossbow guy before the invasion happened. Now, I had entered through the door, not the window. The invader entered through the window, and did something I did not know about. He hit the wooden barrel that was next to the crossbow fella. Boom. I didn't die, but was amused. The rest of the fight wasn't much to write home about. I died. There was much lag.

[Sno]

CoC does actually increase your odds of being invaded, i believe. There are actually a lot of ways to increase invasion odds in DS2, i wonder if some players are just vacuuming up all the invasions and preventing others from seeing any.

As for adaptibility, i've had mine sitting at 20 for most of my time with the game and that's felt like a substantial enough buff by itself to overcome the slow item activation and weak dodge. I might push it up to 25 or 30, but i definitely wouldn't go as far as the soft cap.

[Bjorn]

One advantage of ADP I didn't mention is that it also boosts the Poison BNS, though to a lesser degree than Dex.   But it lets you hit the softcap for the Poison BNS without putting 40 points into Dex.  So if you want to play with poison but don't need 40 DEX, you can split points between Dex/Adp, which may be better overall for your build. 

 

Also, I really hadn't read much about poison besides people bitching about Dark Fog.  Messing around last night, there seem to be 3 tiers of Poison Scaling.

 

Tier 1: Innate poison weapon infused with something else - Low Scaling

Tier 2: Innate poison weapon OR regular weapon infused with poison - Medium Scaling

Tier 3: Innate poison weapon infused with poison - High scaling (double Tier 2?)

 

There are probably some weapons with variations on this, but it works as a baseline. 

 

The Rat Covenant Ring has a hidden bonus of +50 poison for weapons with poison.  It shows up on the weapon stats when equipped, but isn't mentioned in the description of the ring.  This bonus increases to 65 for innate poison weapons that have also been poison infused. 

 

Poison is on the slow side for regular enemies, but it is useful against many bosses and just fun to use in PvP (even though it's not necessarily better than just beating someone to a pulp). 

[Winnipeg Fats]

I never knew that adaptability shortened animation times! That's sure to make chugging elixirs and boosting (Chris Remo^tm) weapons much less of a hazard during boss fights.

Oh god I never knew this either.  Looks like I'm off to beg the firekeepers for another respec.

[Bjorn]

Oh god I never knew this either.  Looks like I'm off to beg the firekeepers for another respec.

 

I just wanted to compliment you on your SC2 avatar.  There's not enough Star Control love in the world.

[dartmonkey]

I got invaded in the Huntsman's Copse.

Ow.

Okay, after respeccing as a pyro and wasting about 30 effigies on it, I finally beat

the Darklurker

. The ancient dragon is the only thing I haven't killed but he's just chillin' and by all accounts he's a crap fight anyway.

I've collected

the King's Soul

, various armors, etc. Think it's NG+ time. But should I chug the boss souls now or keep them to chug first thing in NG+?

[Sno]

Okay Dark Souls 2, you got me good.

In NG+,

Duke's Dear Freja shows up, prior to the boss fight, in a sudden out-of-arena encounter that sure surprised the hell out of me.

[eot]

Joined the bellbros on my SL1, it's a lot of fun! Farmed over 40 chunks, I hope that will last the entire playthrough haha. Ended the night with a 1k damage drop attack! Only ran into one cheater too, not bad.

[Sno]

I'm in NG+ with around 5-6 million soul memory and i'm kind of shocked at some of clumsy, ill-equipped builds people are playing with that deep into the game.

There was kind of this difficulty curve where i started being matched against people who were super on the ball at the end of NG, but now into the separate matchmaking pool for NG+ and beyond, it seems like it has fallen off pretty steeply.

[Blambo]

I'm in NG+ with around 5-6 million soul memory and i'm kind of shocked at some of clumsy, ill-equipped builds people are playing with that deep into the game.

There was kind of this difficulty curve where i started being matched against people who were super on the ball at the end of NG, but now into the separate matchmaking pool for NG+ and beyond, it seems like it has fallen off pretty steeply.

 

Actually I played a lot like that in the first game, as a really badly planned bumbling character who somehow stumbled his way through the whole game twice

[Sno]

I'm having real trouble with the optional dual pursuer fight in NG+, gah.

 

Edit: Or i was. There's a rather large bug with that fight that kind of trivializes it. I would feel bad if it wasn't actually difficult to avoid triggering. Just straight up, if you get hit with the curse attack, one of the pursuers just leaves. Kill the remaining one, the fight still registers as completed and the remaining pursuer still drops the Ring of Blades +2. I guess a theory going around is that since you're locked down by the curse attack for an extended duration, the script controlling the fight thinks you've left the room and despawns the pursuer that isn't locked in the animation with you.

Edit: Huh, and the other pursuer respawned after returning to the room from a bonfire, so i was able to kill him too.

[SilentBtAmazing]

I am really having a hard time getting through the

Pursuer fight in Iron Keep

I know what to do and I can get it right about 2/3 of the way but that is just a no-mistake fight for melee.

[Bjorn]

I'm having real trouble with the optional dual pursuer fight in NG+, gah.

Edit: Or i was. There's a rather large bug with that fight that kind of trivializes it. I would feel bad if it wasn't actually difficult to avoid triggering. Just straight up, if you get hit with the curse attack, one of the pursuers just leaves. Kill the remaining one, the fight still registers as completed and the remaining pursuer still drops the Ring of Blades +2. I guess a theory going around is that since you're locked down by the curse attack for an extended duration, the script controlling the fight thinks you've left the room and despawns the pursuer that isn't locked in the animation with you.

Edit: Huh, and the other pursuer respawned after returning to the room from a bonfire, so i was able to kill him too.

The first time, I tried fighting that legitimately about 10 times, even respeccing once, until I decided I didn't ever want to be good enough to win it and cheesed it the same way you described.

I am really having a hard time getting through the

Pursuer fight in Iron Keep

I know what to do and I can get it right about 2/3 of the way but that is just a no-mistake fight for melee.

That's one of my favorite fights in the game. It's so deliciously tense. And the first time you walk into the room? One of the best shit-your-pants moments in the game.

So I might reverse my stance on Adaptability and decide that having it at the softcap is totally worth it, for PvP at least (probably not if all you do is PvE). The number of attacks I was able to roll and dodge through was crazy. Way more than when I've dueled with very low adaptability. Plus being able to toss out knives for some extra damage at mid-range was crazy useful. And getting heals off when facing certain builds. I usually don't heal during a duel, but against certain builds it's almost necessary. Anytime someone casts Dark Fog, poisons me or pulls out an Avelyn, I'm going to heal. Most of my time spent playing last night was finishing getting Awestones for the Company of Champions, then dueling on the Iron Keep Bridge with DragonBros. I probably fought 40ish fights, and won 24 of them (according to my Dragon Scale count). A lot of those losses came late when I was screwing around with trying to learn to parry using the regular scimitar. Parrying someone in PvP is probably one of the most satisfying things in the game!

Also realized that I now love running into Hex users, they are crunchy, delicious and easy to kill. All you need to do is infuse the Transgressor Shield with Dark (Pre-order shield, also available for purchase late in the game). This gives it 100 percent dark blocking, allowing you to eat all the Hexes they can throw at you at no loss. At my Soul Memory, hexers have so much invested into Faith, Intel and Attunement that they really don't have enough left over to absorb much damage. I've taken to rapidly switching out my shield based on what my opponent shows me as they buff or with the equipment.

This is my favorite build I've had so far, a bit of a variation on my original build that I used on the PS3.

Name: Muhammad Ali - aka Float like a butterfly sting like a bee

RH: Caestus, Poison Black Scorpion Stinger, Dragonrider Bow (for now, might change to a different bow)

LH: Shield or parrying weapon, depending on enemy, rest of slots empty because of Vanquisher's Seal

Rings: Vanquisher's Seal, Second Dragon Ring, Ring of Blades +1. Fourth slot changes, been trying Stone Ring, Ring of Giants and Rat Covenant Ring. Haven't decided which I like more.

Armor: Gyrm Pants, Havel's Gauntlets, Butterfly Chest piece, Butterfly Hat

Mostly I'm just punching people to death, but the Stinger and Bow are there as counters to particular builds. Using one Caestus for poise damage, so I can buff it if desired, and because you can only have one item equipped and still be able to switch to an empty hand (and I want both the bow and Stinger). Heavy armor is the biggest nightmare for this build. I don't have enough poise break to stagger them out of an attack, so need something with a bit longer range to proc poison on them. The other thing I really struggle with is the basic Greatsword. Something about it's reach and angle just wreck me every time.

The Butterfly pieces are including both for looks and function. If I need to poison someone, having the pieces on keeps their poison proc from decreasing even if I have to stop attacking, so long as I can stay close to them.

The Vanquisher's Seal is probably my favorite "weapon" in the game, and I feel it's the most balanced of the top tier weapons. It does awesome damage for low stamina cost, doesn't have to be upgraded and has infinite durability. But it's balanced by being unbuffable, has short range, requires high stat investment, takes a ring slot, and takes 2 or 4 active weapon slots. Contrasted with things like Santier's Spear or the Avelyn which take minimal stat investment, do stunning damage and each have great range for their class.

[Sno]

I'm generally in the "adaptability is boss" camp too. When people break it down like it's only adding a small number of invincibility frames to your roll, it sounds like it might not be that useful, but the practical effect its had on gameplay is massive. I've been coasting through boss fights without even getting hit, it's definitely not the resistance stat of Dark Souls 2. (I'm not sure i can say a whole ton about how it's affecting pvp, because all i've been matched against in NG+ is frickin` wizards.) You know, and it's nice being able to dodge a hit and then safely down an estus charge before said boss can finish their attack recovery.

That Avelyn though, a +10 raw avelyn with ring of blades +2 and lightning-element bolts is just ridiculous. Squishy pvp wizards just melt. They hang back like they think they're just going to safely spam spells, but then i hit for 90% damage and they just go and hide and make me chase them down.

Also, that dark infusion on my old knight's shield worked out splendidly, because it basically now has a flat 70% elemental resistance across the board. I don't know why more people don't use that shield, it's just so good, and shields never degrade quickly enough for its durability to be an issue. (I have repair powder slotted anyways, but it ends up being more for my halbred.)

 

One more random comment: If you pay attention to how being doused in water affects your adjusted resistances, it doesn't actually just give you a fire resistance buff, it debuffs lightning resistance. (Usually by enough to bring it down to 0 resistance, at least for me.) I don't know if that's widely known or not, i haven't seen anybody mention it anywhere. That would seem to make lightning absolutely cruel in any of the water-logged areas of the game, of which there are certainly quite a few.

 

Advice for the pursuer: Strafe to your right around him, that generally gives you a hitbox advantage as his right-handed attacks will struggle to track you. (Most notably with the curse attack, which will straight up miss without you even dodging.) Also, generally try to keep your distance, because he'll try to do his ranged dash attack which is very slow, easy to dodge, and has huge recovery for you to punish.

[Bjorn]

I'm not sure if I ever got the Old Knight's Shield to drop on this playthrough, I'll have to check it out.  The 8 weight probably cuts it out for this character though, maybe one of my more traditional warriors would like it.  Man, looking at its stats, 68 Stability on a medium shield is really good.  I wonder why more people don't use it, particularly for NG when it can drop so early?  I probably looked at it early on, saw the weight, and just stuck with the Drangleic shield. 

 

I'm really trying not to use the Avelyn in PvP for now.  I used the crap out of it on my first two characters, and want to try and find ways to punish people at range without depending on it now.   I love the Dragonrider Bow so much, my favorite bow in the game.  It's draw speed just makes using it a lot more challenging in duels (though it does hit like a truck).  Best use is to hold the shot and let someone try to roll into you, pegging them as they finish the roll, which staggers them.   I may go over to a short bow for awhile, or try out all the bows to see which has the fastest draw (I think the Hunter Bow does, but not sure). 

 

On being in water, slinging lightning at people standing in water is brutal.  Full damage greater lightning spears just melt people. You don't get the chance to do it very often, but when it happens, it's glorious.   It's also interesting trying to use Pyromancy against the LGK.  Since it's raining in his arena, fire does pitiful damage (I foolishly went in once with only fire infused weapons).

[Sno]

The OKS seems to be really bad for parrying, that's one other thing going against it. That might just be me though, i was never great at parrying, but it seemed like i was having more parrying success with other shields. I guess its scaling is really bad too, but even with my NG+ character, scaling doesn't have enough of an affect on most other shields to challenge the base stats of the OKS.

 

Do chaos pyromanices ignore the normal fire resistances or something? I've been able to land kills with chaos storm even against drenched opponents, where my other pyromancies would be worthless. Perhaps it's just the sheer amount of damage output the spell has, i don't know.

The way water plays into the resistances is generally a really frustrating counterpoint to pyromancy though, but i guess it's a good way for the game to hold pyromancy in check, with it still not really obeying the normal rules of the game.