melmer

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

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I did go back to the main game for a bit since I actually tend to beat the Old Iron King long before it's intended, so now I've unlocked the Sunken Crown DLC thing too, and have been kind of going back and forth between both. These are tough, and I'm not really being summoned as much as I would like.

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I did go back to the main game for a bit since I actually tend to beat the Old Iron King long before it's intended, so now I've unlocked the Sunken Crown DLC thing too, and have been kind of going back and forth between both. These are tough, and I'm not really being summoned as much as I would like.

 

After two full playthroughs of the full game, I've found that people summon a lot less in the various DLCs, especially in the gauntlet sections that are expressly designed for multiple players. It's a frustrating phenomenon, but I guess that just not as many people buy the DLC for any game, even if the DLC is better-regarded than the game itself...

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Yeah, I was eventually able to solo the Sunken King's gauntlet (twice, because I wanted that stupid skirt for another character) and the Iron King's (just once).  But the Ivory King I was never able to get through by myself.  Ultimately I ended up friending a guy I met running around the Iron King and we were chatting, and he offered to help me out with the Ivory King.  Made it on the first attempt with him, but just fucking barely.  I'm not sure I ever would have gotten through it without his help. 

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Yeah, I was eventually able to solo the Sunken King's gauntlet (twice, because I wanted that stupid skirt for another character) and the Iron King's (just once).  But the Ivory King I was never able to get through by myself.  Ultimately I ended up friending a guy I met running around the Iron King and we were chatting, and he offered to help me out with the Ivory King.  Made it on the first attempt with him, but just fucking barely.  I'm not sure I ever would have gotten through it without his help. 

 

I made about two dozen attempts, pissing away at least 40,000 souls, and finally gave up. I've beaten every boss in Dark Souls 2 with two separate characters at least twice, except for those two fucking cats, which I've only gotten to try to fight just twice (and once, with my Berserk homage, I almost beat them, starting with me at half health, but then I tried to rush the last two hits and got owned, because Dark Souls).

 

Fucking lightning-demon horses in a snowstorm...

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Oh yeah, the not seeing anybody to summon is even more annoying than nobody summoning me. I've only seen other people's signs around like three or four times maybe, and once, on the very top of Brume Tower, the guy I summoned preferred to instantly jump to his doom instead of helping me make my way down. Guess he placed his sign from outside the DLC area. I can kind of understand why people want to put their signs down close to the nearest bossfight as possible, but it's a shame, too. I personally really like helping somebody explore as a phantom. They get to have backup and I maybe pick up on a few hidden things by watching them.

 

Plus those areas really seem to be designed with more than one person in mind. There's a noticeable uptick in NPC summons to kind of account for that, but those tend to be more right in front of the boss gate and don't help much on the way. That part in the Sunken King with the spike floor and unkillable knight ghosts was absurd! I somehow got through there running and screaming on my first try and made it all the way to the bonfire with all the bumbling dinos, but going back and clearing the area was rough. And then during the descent to the boss I kept getting beat up by a single knight. That's one of these things that's just so much easier with another person, when you're basically just taking turns backstabbing.

 

Eventually I just threw on fall control and ran past him, and I did manage to beat the Queen and the Dragon down there just now, and was even summoned to help with the queen a couple of times.

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Eventually I just threw on fall control and ran past him, and I did manage to beat the Queen and the Dragon down there just now, and was even summoned to help with the queen a couple of times.

 

Yeah, I had no problem summoning and being summoned for the one "mandatory" boss of each DLC. It reveals to me a hitherto unconsidered style of playing the Souls game, which is just rushing along the critical path without deviation until an area could be called "beaten." The majesty of the Souls games is in the exploration, but I guess there are bound to be people out there who don't want to explore...

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They do kind of discourage that by being incredibly obtuse about what the critical path even is, but I suppose the later in the life-cycle of such a game, the more people will either know it from their own experience or are playing entirely based on wiki knowledge.

 

Anyway, back in the main world, and especially in Drangleic Castle, there's still plenty of traffic. I put my sign down at the first bonfire there figuring I could help explore the castle, but of course I was more in the memory range for helping defeat the end boss, or being a panic summon for somebody who got invaded, There were several rematches of 1 invader vs. 3 phantoms, one triggered by me after I became human from helping out on a succesful run. I did feel guilty enough about wasting everybody's time that I took them to the actual boss afterwards, which was still a completely trivial outing for a crew decked out for finishing the game.

 

On the upside, I was also invaded by somebody called "Harmless Butterfly" (I think, the butt part was filtered) who hopped around me in a moonlight butterfly outfit for a bit. I said hello, he said hello, I said very good, he said thank you, dropped 10 human effigies and left.

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Each of the DLCs introduced a novel mechanic.  Riding all the pillars in the sunken king, stabbing the statues in the Iron king and finding the knights after the storm passes in Winter.   I could also point to multiple other places in DS2 where an idea or mechanic is only used in one place (like fire resistance in Iron Keep to run the lava paths or having to drain the poison in Harvest Valley).

 

 

 

So did you beat the kitty while it was invisible (apparently this is possible, and insane).  That area already showed you that you may need to explore before a boss is beatable. 

 

I'm with Lork on this, I felt it was pretty obvious that you were intended to re-explore the area now that the storm had passed.  I had spotted at least 3 different paths that were blocked off on the way to the lady.  There were the empty chairs above the chasm with one dude already in place.  Of course Dark Souls lets you go ahead and fight the boss, but it's a choice, nothing is particularly pointing you more that direction than back towards re-exploring.

 

It's fine that you didn't like the fight, not every boss is for everyone, but it looks like you're trying to find some objective measure to justify your dislike of it, most of which can be counterpointed. 

 

So I don't think I'm trying to be objective about this. I thought the fight wasn't fun, and it never occurred to me to re-explore. There are tons of examples I'm sure where people thought shit was obtuse, and I thought it was obvious - I recently saw someone complain that the Rom fight in Bloodborne was dumb because they had no idea you had to jump in the water. I on the other hand went straight in as though I knew I was supposed to. 

 

I guess my main issue is that I've not experienced that feeling of being lost due to a mechanic in Dark Souls before. The sunken king "new" mechanic was awesome because of how it was introduced. I was fighting someone, I hit a switch, I thought "OH!" That was great, it made me smile. The killing the statues seems so obvious in Iron King because there's a prompt and an immediate reward. 

 

No I didn't fight the cat invisible, because I explored right first. I went everywhere I could, then when I couldn't do anything else, I went left. I didn't even know the cat could be invisible until you mentioned it! 

 

I know that the reason I don't like the mechanic is my fault, I assumed I'd find an item to melt the ice. I was in the Zelda mind set for that, but seeing a fog gate makes me want to tackle the boss. I probably should have noticed that there were more chairs for more knights, but I was so focussed on fighting the boss that I didn't notice it. 

 

That's not how it works, and never has been. Bosses that require you to figure out a "trick" outside of their arena have been a part of the series all the way back to Demon's Souls (See Fool's Idol, Seath, 4 Kings, Kalameet, and Mytha, The Windmill Queen). There's nothing in the games saying that you have to, or even should keep banging your head against a boss if you just can't beat it. They actually go to great lengths to ensure that there are as few bottlenecks as possible, always providing multiple paths for you to go down in case you get stuck on one, with the one major exception living in infamy.

Your attitude toward the boss fights is a valid one to have of course, but you have to accept that it's not shared by everyone, and I definitely don't think it's reflective of the design of the games or the way most people play them.

 

Honestly, out of those examples you've given, the only one I agree with is Mytha. I had to ask for help on that because I had no idea, and I believe they fixed that in SotFS by putting and enemy on the ramp that won't attack until you attack them, making it far more obvious that the windmill is important. I also thought that was bullshit in the vanilla game. All the other fights I came across the "trick" naturally, or someone had thrown a message down which caused me to explore something else (the example there is Four Kings and "Ring Needed"). 

 

I'm not saying everyone should have my opinion on how to progress in Dark Souls, I'm saying that my attitude is why I didn't like the mechanic of what to me, was re-exploration. 

 

I should probably reiterate, that I'm not saying it's bad, but that it's my opinion it's bad. I feel like that should be obvious though.

 

I'm still not a fan of the DLC areas in general. The enemy variety is low and the bosses are at the end, not scattered throughout. I feel like I'm slogging through the same enemies with different colour palettes for hours before I get to the bosses. Despite my dislike of the Ivory King boss, all the others I've experienced (the sunken and ivory, not made it to a boss in iron) have actually been good, even though there's been some recycling of mechanics. They all feel fresh enough and difficult enough to hold my attention. 

 

I'm pretty sure I felt that way about the original DS DLC too. The bosses were amazing, but everything else was kinda boring. Maybe it's because it's extra. I'm only playing it to get to the bosses and not progress the story. 

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Now that I've reached the Ivory King DLC I definitely see the complaint about these being a little repetitive in their combat, the main enemies of all three are very similar except for a different paint job. Also both Sunken Crown and Old Iron King feature a lot of vertical architecture to move around in, can't say if that holds equally true for the last one. I did get to see most of it just now, I think, since I was summoned right from the entry bridge by another player who had two other phantoms already there for clearing the way as a group.

 

It was really nice, until the game froze and crashed my PC just after we reached the third bonfire. This happened once already recently, but this time it was while connected to another player, which is I think what caused my save file to be corrupted when I first played DS 2 way back when. It's apparently fine though this time, and I made a more recent backup.

 

That does seem like a pretty rough gauntlet to go through on your own though. Hopefully people will still be around when I run it.

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I came across the first boss in Iron King.

The Smelter Demon

 

Was not happy.= One of my most hated bosses with a palette swap and more HP. I must have missed a short cut, because the run back to the boss is long and very dangerous. I have to use one or two estus thanks to a mage putting a slow spell on me at the worst times.

 

I've heard the final boss of Iron King is great though. I will certainly slog through this to get to experience that.

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I'm pretty sure that's the wrong way. I certainly didn't fight him until after I completed the DLC. He's an optional boss, I'm pretty sure of that.

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I'm pretty sure that's the wrong way. I certainly didn't fight him until after I completed the DLC. He's an optional boss, I'm pretty sure of that.

Yeah, the area you just completed was an optional, ultra sadistic challenge gauntlet. Basically the Dark Souls equivalent of an MMO raid, I suppose. There's one in each DLC, you can recognize them from the sudden spike in difficulty and the appearance of those headstones with the messages next to them that say something like "The signs are being channeled from far away".

One word of advice I can give is that if you have a no summoning policy, I would make an exception just this once and treat yourself to a few phantoms, even if it's just the NPCs. These areas were very clearly designed to be taken on by a team, and you will not have a good time doing them alone. The one you just did might have given off the wrong impression because the Smelter Demon is a chump, but the other two do not fuck around. I don't even know what you would have to do to beat the boss of the Sunken King one alone, but whatever it is couldn't possibly be fun.

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Huh. Interesting...I didn't see anywhere else to go. 

 

I want to beat the boss now though. It's a grudge match, especially as he has 30K souls sitting in his room that I can't just ignore. Levels are so rare now that I can't miss out on the opportunity. I'll have to go back a bit and see what I missed. 

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You just have to take a different elevator, I think. The main boss of that DLC is way at the bottom of that huge tower.

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Fume Knight and Sir Alonne are fantastic bosses. I took down Fume without too much trouble, but Alonne is kicking my ass. This is by far the best part of the DLC for me.

I love that you can respec in Ds2. I switched it up to a 40/40 quality build and having s lot of fun messing around with all the different weapons available to me now. I think for NG+ I'll make a spell sword to experience casting for the first time.

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Oh yeah, they're the worst.

 

NG+ is good! Although its difficulty was clearly balanced before the DLC was introduced because I'm ploughing through everything. Plus, I'm trying to max out Sun Bros, meaning I have all the souls. I think I need 100,000+ for a levle up now. 

 

Getting 30 Sun Medals is hard. I have 25. Sometimes I get summoned every 5 minutes and plough through like 3 or 4 bosses, others I'm waiting around for an hour to get summoned, then the host will die on the boss. It's really frustrating when it's bad, but really fun when it's good. 

 

Some of the host deaths have made me crack up hard though. Right after the Smelter Demon, there's the bridge that a turtle knight breaks. I jumped over it, and started fighting him, dispatched him and moved on to other enemies. In the corner of my eye, I saw the host running stopping then turning around and going for a longer run up. She did it 5 or so times, then the last one just ran straight off the bridge without even jumping. I cracked up for about 5 minutes after that.

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That's about as good as when players summoned for the Pursuer bossfight early in the game accidentally snipe their host with the ballistas.

 

I think I'm closing in on 30 sunmedals myself. Not really interested in the rewards, I just picked the covenant to have a flashier summon sign and phantom. In some areas I never had much luck being summoned, in others far more so, and I tend to try to do that pretty much until I'm out of the memory range for an area. After the early areas, which are usually pretty crowded, I've had the most luck in Huntsman's Copse, Harvest Valley and the Iron Keep. Also the first Bonfire in the Ivory King DLC is pretty good, although sometimes people there take you to the bossfight without having collected the item that makes the boss visible, and sometimes they want help exploring, which is quite a trip from that point.

 

Those are all probably a ways away in NG+ though. Probably rough finding people there.

 

I'm really glad that the optional gauntlet in the Ivory King has a full three NPC summons available, else I'd never make it past the demon horses. That said, the boss is still kicking my butt.

 

I'll probably stick with it though, since I've mostly run out of stuff to do otherwise. I'm pretty much right up to the final bossfight in the main game and defeated all the core bosses of the DLCs, which also comes with a neat blessing from the King, who is really chill about me having murdered his future self.

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I managed to get all the sun medals. I did a mix of leaving my character at the iron keep, and getting a summon once every 10 or so minutes, and if those dried up, I farmed the falconers at things betwixt. They have a low drop rate, but it's higher than 0 with all the buffs you can get.

Helping people out was actually really fun. I'm most surprised that I never once encountered a Dex build. Everyone was either a caster or rocking an ultra great sword.

I'm now doing the abyss covenant. I made it to the boss, but man is that boss tough.

the boss splits in two, but because they have a lot of ranged attacks, they tend to be on other sides of the room, meaning I have to run around constantly. Not a particularly enjoyable boss thanks it its move set. it has a lot of damage output and takes hits like a champ. My ultra great sword which normally hits for 500+ only does 200 or so damage per hit.

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Yeah, tough boss! Feels like a pretty high stakes fight 'cos you have to use an effigy every time you want another pop at it, although by that point in the game the average player will usually have quite a few to use up.

 

Good luck. It is weak to an element, which you may have discovered already.

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Some ultra greatswords actually scale with DEX though. I know cause I'm using the Drakewing Ultra Greatsword at the moment, which has a really satisfying two-handed strong attack that fires a projectile, and if you're in melee range it actually hits for both the projectile and the swinging motion. Got another of these Forlorn invasions yesterday, and previously I had to play them kind of slow and methodical, this one I could just hammer into the ground with like three of those hits.

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The ultra great swords are pretty much always the same one. The one that looks like a buster sword. I think it's the one called "greatsword". Still the vast majority are casters.

I've not tried elements on the boss. If you buff before you start, you lose the buff. There's also not a lot of time in the fight to get a buff off without getting hit. I'm sure it's

lightning

as that would fit thematically. I'll try that tonight.

I'm also rolling in effigies. I've had 99 for a while.

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That boss is one of the odder ones in the game, in that for some builds it's laughably easy (like a 20 second no risk fight) and for other builds it's one of the most challenging fights in the game. 

 

I'd suggest massively stacking Fire and Dark resistance (rings/armor/one buff).  It uses all three types of magic, but I find regular sorcery to be the least threatening.  Things can come undone so quickly in the back half of the fight that even being able to take one more hit can be the difference between victory and failure.  The last time I beat it was with my Pickaxe build and fuuuuuuck was it a nerve wracking fight. 

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I'm now doing the abyss covenant. I made it to the boss, but man is that boss tough.

the boss splits in two, but because they have a lot of ranged attacks, they tend to be on other sides of the room, meaning I have to run around constantly. Not a particularly enjoyable boss thanks it its move set. it has a lot of damage output and takes hits like a champ. My ultra great sword which normally hits for 500+ only does 200 or so damage per hit.

I think that's the best boss in the game (haven't played the DLC though). It's true you have to run around a lot, but I think the moveset is well designed because the tells are clear, you can avoid all the attacks reliably and there's more to it than just dodging sword swings.

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