Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Egan_BW]

It would be fun if you could enter the boss arena from multiple different sides. Once I went on a long and circuitous route to try to enter the taurus demon's arena from the back, but unfortunately you just can't go through that fog wall.

[NJW2000]

Well, gaping dragon was amazing. 

Even if I felt a bit overpowered with ten Estus, level 32, and a +5 reinforced club, it was still a fun fight, with a lot of chipping away, kiting, etc. I also had to use keyboard camera controls without lockon, which worked most of the time, except for one or two bits when I sprinted in circles.

It's funny how much tactical variation you need. Like with titanite demons, the other big thing I've had to deal with, what worked was recognition dodges and blocking right in their grille, while with Gaping dodges were a last resort for when you were right up in the unspeakable bit. Debating between Sen's Fortress and Blighttown now (I took the easy path down after a disagreeable basilisk incident.) Might have to be the latter because a) poison and gravity suck and b) greataxe.

[nenjin]

Gaping Dragon: A boss that makes you go "OH SHIT" when you meet them and then go "What?" when you beat them.

[EnigmaticHat]

Gaping Dragon: A boss that makes you go "OH SHIT" when you meet them and then go "What?" when you beat them.

Its true.  Although I will say I think some people have less or more trouble with certain bosses depending on their build.  For example my character in DS2 has no poise whatsoever, and no weapons or spells with wide sweeping attacks, nor any long range fast firing attacks.  Normally what I do have is more than enough to not need those things, but for the Royal Rat Authority killing the 4 toxic rats before the main boss jumps down feels almost impossible.  And dodging the main boss's attacks would normally be doable by abusing iframes (agility FTW), but I can't exactly hold my dodge with a bunch of dashing rats about.

Another example would be the moonlight butterfly as a melee character vs one with range attacks.  Granted its not a super hard boss fight either way... I also imagine that players who are used to having some personal space (like a first playthrough mage) might be a little shocked by the belfry gargoyle fight because its extended and they both put a lot of pressure on you to be constantly dodging or blocking.  At least the Capra demon fight is short.

[Retropunch]

Gaping Dragon: A boss that makes you go "OH SHIT" when you meet them and then go "What?" when you beat them.

Its true.  Although I will say I think some people have less or more trouble with certain bosses depending on their build.  For example my character in DS2 has no poise whatsoever, and no weapons or spells with wide sweeping attacks, nor any long range fast firing attacks.  Normally what I do have is more than enough to not need those things, but for the Royal Rat Authority killing the 4 toxic rats before the main boss jumps down feels almost impossible.  And dodging the main boss's attacks would normally be doable by abusing iframes (agility FTW), but I can't exactly hold my dodge with a bunch of dashing rats about.

Couldn't agree more. I didn't even notice the Royal Rat Authority fight because SOULLLLL APPPEASSEE!!! Cast it 4 times and won immediately. Literally didn't even move from the same spot.
However, an hour later the spider boss absolutely wrecked me. I just didn't have the agility to dodge the little spiders and had to get too close to attack with my hammer.

Same in D3, that crystal mage thing which spawns copies of itself ruined me, because as a pyromancer I had no fast attacks, whereas other bosses we just a lolfest.

[Nighthawk]

At least the Capra demon fight is short.

Short because he has a small health pool or short because he and his puppies kill you within moments of entering the first time you fight him?

[EnigmaticHat]

Beat Royal Rat Authority.  Cobbled together the most poison resistant light armor I could find from the various loot I'd got over the course of the game.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I think it looks kind of cute.

On a related note, I started as a swordsman and despite approaching the lategame, I've still used nothing but the wanderer's armor for 99% of the game.  It has the best physical damage to weight ratio of any armor I've been able to find despite searching every nook and cranny.  To use heavy armor would make my roll shorter or require me to level endurance.  Vitality and armor seem fairly useless for PvE.  Having ridiculous iframes, a long roll, and faster estus drinking seems almost mandatory to survive some bosses.  If I had put my points into say vigor vitality and strength with heavy armor instead of vitality dexterity and adaptability with light armor, I don't know how I would drink estus against say the Lost Sinner.  And if you can't drink estus, your effective health is going to be a lot lower in PvE even if you have 50 points in vigor.

I've also not reinforced my wanderer's armor at all even tho I want to.  Titanite shards are strangely absent in this game.  Even tho large titanite shards are infinite quite early into to the game, and titanite chunks and slabs are handed out generously.  The result is that I've been very scared to begin reinforcing things ("is ____ good" is the main thing I've spoiled myself on) but once I reinforced my main weapon past the shard level it was easy to max it out.  It seems to me like it punishes experimentation.  Early on in the game I put a few shards into a mail breaker and a winged spear before deciding the better of it.  If I had put all my shards into silly things like that I would have been stuck without a good weapon for maybe 2/3rds of the game cause I really haven't found that many shards.

[nenjin]

Eh, I solo'd 99% of DS2 as a Sword and Board Heavy Armor fighter. I didn't fat roll but I was right at the margin.

It's really the choice: do you want to suffer immensely for a single mistake, or suffer less for multiple mistakes? Being able to throw up a shield and just "nope" an attack against some bosses is huge, like Lost Sinner. That's where the stamina pays out. You have to read attacks a lot less when you can throw that up. Armor, yeah, the damage mitigation often doesn't feel like it's worth it. But sometimes the difference of one hit can get you out of a tight spot.

The enemies that cause the most problems for people that aren't pure dodge roll are the ones that keep up a consistent stream of attacks that you can't block or take more than a couple of. I'm thinking Smelter Demon, which was the only boss fight in DS2 (other than the last one) I broke down and didn't solo. The constant rate of attacks + fire damage sucks and yeah, I can almost see a pure dodge roll character being easier there.

I didn't feel there were any boss fights like S&O from DS1 in DS2. There were almost no fights where I felt like you couldn't win due to reduced mobility. S&O fucking broke me in DS1 though, playing the same build.

TLDR: the reason for playing armor and shield is the skill threshold is lower.

[Teneb]

The upgrade system is by far one of the main problems of the Souls series. It pretty much locks you into a single equipment set unless you want to spend a lot of time and money to get something else up to par. Dark Souls 3 mitigates it a bit with the armour, but weapons continue to run into the same problem.

"Hey, here's a really cool weapon, but you're not going to use it because it's +0 and you have a +10 you've been using since the start of the game."

I actually did the entirety of Dark Souls 3, including the DLCs, with the estoc I started the game with.

[EnigmaticHat]

Yes, but.  I have 30 ADP and <20% encumberance rating and that shit is broken.  The iframes are ridiculously generous, I can no-sell attacks that blatantly hit me even if I'm rolling in place.  The chloranthy ring means that I have to stand still for like a third of a second and I can dodge roll again.  On paper yes I should be punishable by unexpected  death or running out of stamina at a bad time, but in practice even getting swarmed by 10 enemies or charged by a boss I can usually heal many times before dying.  This isn't me bragging about my personal skill, I really do think that for PvE ADP is easy mode.  I'm glad the other souls games don't have it.

Edit: Disclaimer, I may be overleveled.  I'm almost 100 at this point, but, it also feels like I leveled a lot faster than I did in DS1.  I haven't been intentionally grinding souls so... I dunno, maybe ANY stats would be overpowered with my level?

[SOLDIER First]

DS2 hemorrhages souls at you everywhere you go, so you're definitely going to level up a lot more than DS1 (or even 3, which has about the same leveling speed as 1, as far as I've noticed). It's normal.

[Retropunch]

Yeah DS2 literally cannot stop giving you souls. I'd often look down and see that I've got three levels worth of souls just by doing a bit of casual exploring. I think it also has some nice grinding loops against enemies which are weak against the main damage types. DS1/3 didn't seem to have areas like the Iron Keep (which is just ridiculous with lightning/sunbro build) or other easy loops. I also have 40 humanities in my current run through and haven't been exactly sparing with them. All that being said, its' still my favourite one of the series and the only one I've played through multiple times (mainly due to SotFS).

Re upgrading: Couldn't agree more, it 's the one thing I dislike about the souls games. I tend to get one decent slashing and one bludgeoning weapon with move sets I like and just stick with them - I've normally found those in the first hour or two, and everything else is just trash. A few times I'll find a piece of armour that has something I like on it (saints hood, enchanted gauntlets etc) but 90% of everything I pick up after the first few hours is just ignored.

There isn't much incentive to have weapons of different elemental types either due to how scaling works, so I tend to just stick with whatever and hammer away at them even if they're not weak to that element/type.

[Egan_BW]

Titanite shards are buyable and cheap, at least in DS1 and 3. I'm not afraid of upgrading new weapons to decent levels because past a certain point in the game it's basically free.

[USEC_OFFICER]

You can buy them infinitely in DS2 too. At least when you complete Iron Keep and have access to Stone Trader Cloanne. She also sells Chunks and Large Shards infinitely too, once you get far enough in the game.

So really, in DS2 there's nothing stopping you from upgrading basic equipment to +9 besides the time needed to grind out all of the souls for it. Unique weapons and equipment though... Not so much.

[nenjin]

Dark Souls 3 gave you a disgusting amount of Titanite Shards. If you could have upgraded armor I would have seen the need for so many, but in practice it led to many moments of "Oh what's this shiny." "Great, more fucking Titanite Shards." It served as loot filler and by the end of the game I was sick of seeing it and most other upgrade materials. I was generally always delighted by the stuff you'd find via exploration in DS1 and 2, but 3 often felt like a letdown in that department. Not truly bad, just weaker compared to the other two games.