JonFE
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Uncomfortably numb...
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Post by JonFE on Jan 22, 2024 16:43:34 GMT
puddleduck Isn't the fact that he single-handedly picked Dark Souls 2 as the best Dark Souls game enough evidence to confirm that he is indeed going mad?!?
EDIT: Damn new page...
I'm kidding wunty , you know we love you mate  |
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Post by puddleduck on Jan 22, 2024 19:00:40 GMT
It's certainly not helping his case. Perhaps it would help if Wunty tried finding some posts he's made, about how he much he loves paddle boarding or something.
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wunty
Full Member
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Post by wunty on Jan 22, 2024 21:52:11 GMT
You know, I’ve never tried paddle boarding. Why don’t those guys just sit down on it.
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Post by puddleduck on Jan 23, 2024 13:30:38 GMT
You know, I’ve never tried paddle boarding. Why don’t those guys just sit down on it. It's like someone looked at a Kayak or a Canoe and thought, "I think we can make that shitter." |
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Post by Matt A on Jan 23, 2024 15:45:03 GMT
Souls 2 is good if you want to be a caster, overpowered dark magic build ftw.
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Post by Aunt Alison on Jan 23, 2024 15:47:20 GMT
Or a powerstancing dual weilding Zweihander motherfucker
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Post by Matt A on Jan 23, 2024 15:48:09 GMT
My timing isn't good enough
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Post by JuniorFE on Jan 26, 2024 15:46:56 GMT
Since I'm apparently very good at tracking these things down, here's a DS2 farming spot that you can access as early as Lost Bastille! (I could post it in its own thread too... Or we can just say this is the all-purpose Dark Souls thread since the other two are old now) Requirements: Access to the Straid's Cell bonfire in Lost Bastille (requires a Fragrant Branch of Yore to depetrify Straid, and either another Branch to open the way to Ruin Sentinels or finding an elevator that used to be locked by a Pharros Lockstone contraption in the original but is open in SotFS, as detailed in the Ruin Sentinels wiki page on how to skip them) Being in the Covenant of Champions (accessed in Majula) for infinitely respawning enemies. The Soul Appease spell (sold by Stone Trader Chloanne in Harvest Valley's entrance, or in Majula after you exhaust her dialogue in the Valley) and 19 Faith/10 Attunement (for the slot) to use it. Technically not required per se, but it makes things faster and safer. This does mean getting through the Skeleton Lords and possibly using a Soul Vessel to respec for the stats (you'll gain levels quickly enough that it won't matter though). Optional but useful things: The Tseldora set (kill Maughlin the Armourer in Majula. This locks you out of an achievement and you should also spend 16k souls in his shop to unlock his full inventory before you do, so he can have it when you revive him) and Covetous Silver Serpent Ring (Merchant Hag Melentia gives you the +1 if you talk to her after spending 10k in her shop) to boost soul gain. At least one Bonfire Ascetic used on the Straid's Cell bonfire, to boost soul gain. One doubles the payout, the rest are less of an increase. To use Ascetics there you need to defeat the Lost Sinner in Sinners' Rise first (possibly also the Ruin Sentinels, but the Ruin Sentinels alone won't do, I killed them before Lost Sinner and couldn't use an Ascetic). Note that the Petrified Dragon Bone in the cell next to Straid's becomes something else if you use an Ascetic/in NG+, so pick it up first if you want. The method: Outside Straid's Cell there are five passive (until you get very close) Rupturing Undead. Either kill them one by one (be careful of Straid, he's standing very close to one) or cast Soul Appease near the center of the room (one or two casts -depending on NG+ level- in the right spot kill all of them even with a +0 chime and minimum req Faith, and the spell doesn't affect Straid). Rest in the bonfire, repeat. Whole thing takes only a few seconds with Soul Appease, and with the Tseldora set, CSSR+1 and one Bonfire Ascetic you net about 4k souls per attempt. If you're fast enough and use an Ascetic or three you could easily net 1+ million souls an hour, way earlier and safer than the Giant Lord, and without needing to constantly burn Ascetics (thanks to Covenant of Champions)! And they drop Alluring Skulls too  |
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Post by JuniorFE on Jan 26, 2024 15:48:40 GMT
And tease me about using it if you want, but I got through Ruin Sentinels, Skeleton Lords and Lost Sinner without the spot in just a couple hours last night, so clearly I'm doing something right  (I did use the available NPC summons though, to be fair) |
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JonFE
Junior Member
Uncomfortably numb...
Posts: 1,927
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Post by JonFE on Jan 26, 2024 15:51:04 GMT
Don't worry sonny, all's fair in Love, War and Dark Souls...
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Post by JuniorFE on Jan 26, 2024 15:56:31 GMT
Don't worry sonny, all's fair in Love, War and Dark Souls... Well, it would be pretty hypocritical of you especially to tease me, considering you've used every Souls farming spot I've told you about and some that I haven't  Darkroot Garden's AI exploit, Giant Lord, the bird in Elden Ring, that one player-generated Chalice Dungeon in Bloodborne... We're not shy about it should it be available |
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JonFE
Junior Member
Uncomfortably numb...
Posts: 1,927
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Post by JonFE on Jan 26, 2024 16:01:49 GMT
What teasing, I'm agreeing with ya!
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Post by JuniorFE on Jan 26, 2024 16:03:49 GMT
What teasing, I'm agreeing with ya! I know, I'm saying it would be hypocritical if you did >_> |
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Post by Matt A on Jan 26, 2024 17:40:09 GMT
From what I remember I think I farmed the infinite spawning enemies just before the Velstadt boss fight. I think I used a bonfire ascetic.
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zagibu
Junior Member
Posts: 1,940
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Post by zagibu on Feb 6, 2024 13:30:42 GMT
The Dark Souls Trilogy Compendium reprint is unfortunately delayed until March 15. Just in case you needed it for a close birthday or something.
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wunty
Full Member
Pastry Forward
Posts: 6,671
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Post by wunty on Feb 9, 2024 9:51:43 GMT
Ha. That's MY birthday. It's fate. Happy birthday to meeeeee.
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Post by Danno on Feb 9, 2024 10:55:58 GMT
Don't give up, Skeleton!
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Post by RadicalRex on Mar 5, 2024 10:47:36 GMT
Putting this here because I don't want to turn the Recently Completed thread into a Dark Souls thread. The DS1&3 thread is obviously the right place to discuss DS2. Speaking of, I do think you'll enjoy DS2 more, as it does fix a few of your gripes. I'll put a few mechanics behind spoilers in case you want to go in completely blind: Your combat movement is more free, for one, you can roll in all directions and should be able to freely sprint even when locked on.
The runback to a boss is also less punishing. There's more bonfires around on average (and warping between bonfires is unlocked from the start). There's also quite a few shortcuts you can unlock if you know how, probably more than in DS1 (and there's maps in the wiki as a last resort), plus enemies stop respawning after you kill them about a dozen times, so you could, in theory, slowly kill everything in your path again and again and have a free path to the boss.
Finally, Scholar of the First Sin added a lot more NPC summons that you can use when human, to the point where I'm pretty sure almost every boss has a summon if you know where to look (and they can make the levels themselves easier, too).
Of course, it's not all rosy. For one, enemies not infinitely respawning also means your grinding is limited (although there is a covenant, accessible from the hub and cancellable at any time through an NPC also there, that, as long as you're in it, restores infinite respawning at the cost of also making enemies stronger).
Your Estus Flask is also weaker than you might expect, it's slower to consume and your health increases more gradually. You'll have to get used to having other methods of healing (consumables or spells). Your torch is also much clunkier to use and also doesn't have infinite duration anymore, although on the flipside it's also much less necessary on the whole (there is one boss that can be made easier by using the torch outside its fight, but AFAIK no areas as bad as the Tomb of the Giants, for instance)
Finally, aside from one death knocking you out of human form (thus removing most NPC summon signs - some are still available), each death slowly saps your maximum health, up to a maximum of 50%, until you use a Human Effigy (the humanity equivalent) at a bonfire to become human again. There's a ring that mitigates this, capping the reduction at 25% of your maximum health, but you need to get it first... In theory, you could slowly clear out an area's enemies little by little (since they don't infinitely respawn), and only become human again when the path to the boss is empty, but it gets tedious. There are a couple things that I won't put behind spoilers, because not knowing them will just sour the experience for you unnecessarily: Poise is much more important in DS2, and the only way to increase it (besides wearing heavier armour, or maybe certain spells) is levelling Endurance and Adaptability equally. If you have 20 END and 40 ADP, your Poise will be lower than if you had 30/30, for instance. Perhaps even more importantly, there's a stat called Agility, which is again raised by levelling Adaptability (and, to a lesser extent, Attunement), which makes many things you do just... better. Your dodges have more invincibility frames, you consume items and cast spells more quickly... It helps a lot. In short, regardless of what your build is or what other hints you read, remember this: make sure to keep your ADP (for Agility and Poise) and END (for Poise and stamina) up to date. You'll have a much more enjoyable experience. Cheers, much appreciated! Thing is, I'm already fairly well into the game, in my belated DS1 review I made that last comment jokingly because I know DS2 has a reputation, especially SotFS. So I was already familiar with some of the things you said, not all though, like the whole poise thing. I've gone for an agility/mobility build, i.e. I want super dodge rolls. So I invested heavily into APT for i-frames (settled for 33 APT/105 AGI so far) and I try to stay very low on equip load, ideally well below 30%--I also invested some in VIT just to reduce that percentage. Works very well for me so far, the only instance where I had to change was the Belfrey Gargoyles that I had to tank with heavy armour and a shield. Problem is, with my entire armour set weighing well below 10, poise on armour isn't really a thing. At least anything I've found so far that has any poise at all weighs far more than what I want to use. Which means, with 30/30 END/APT I'd have 9 poise, and if I wear my poise ring it'll be 19. Now when I look at the breakpoint list, if I understand it correctly I must have a poise of 36 before it even begins to have any effect whatsoever. So if you have 0 poise on your armour, that means getting more via levelling is pointless, doesn't it? As for the hollowing mechanic, yeah... no. I guess they looked at the previous games and realised that if you have nothing to lose, you can die without further punishment, so obviously they had to change that! To me this is just another stupid nuisance, I'm already putting up with the corpse runs and runbacks and all that, isn't that enough? Just let me have some fun for God's sake! Elden Ring does that whole humanity/hollowing/whatever stuff best by not having it. This time I didn't wait until after my first playthrough, I wanted to have a better experience the first time round, so after an hour I downloaded a mod that removes the hollowing. There, fixed, game improved, never looked back. |
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Post by JuniorFE on Mar 5, 2024 11:19:33 GMT
Now when I look at the breakpoint list, if I understand it correctly I must have a poise of 36 before it even begins to have any effect whatsoever. So if you have 0 poise on your armour, that means getting more via levelling is pointless, doesn't it? The problem with that breakpoint list is that it only really cares about weapons players can use (i.e. PvP), where figuring out poise gets weird because things like the Stone Ring (+30 flat poise damage on every hit) exist. In PvE most bosses/big monsters will probably still stun you easily, but when it comes to mooks (most of the game) having at least a little poise can be the difference between getting stunlocked by a stiff breeze and being able to take a hit (and either hit back or get out of the way/heal), and you can have that even with light armour/equip load just by equipping one or two heavy things (say, gloves and boots). Much like Agility, it can make things a good bit less frustrating, and since you get poise naturally by levelling stats you'd want to increase for other things anyway (ADP for Agility and END for stamina) you don't have to go too far out of your way either way (I also read in various comments -but haven't confirmed- that the values displayed for Poise in-game are less than the actual effect, so there's that possibility to consider as well) |
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Post by JuniorFE on Mar 5, 2024 11:25:06 GMT
Also, if you don't mind being spoiled on a good grinding spot and a few other things, you can check out my post above And for a good lightweight armour set (great defenses, but unfortunately still not too much poise) there's this: After you spend 16,000 souls total on Maughlin the Armourer's shop, talking to him with zero souls held (just jump off a cliff in Majula or something, you can reclaim them afterwards) will have him give you the illusory Aurous Set for free |
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Post by skalpadda on Mar 5, 2024 15:15:55 GMT
I don't remember the numbers at all, but after enough agility that my dodges felt reasonably reliable (not a huge amount) I still found pumping up stamina made the biggest difference. Not as clearly overpowered as in DS1, but the game loves to throw crap at you that isn't really tankable anyway. I didn't care about PvP at all though, and detest the idea of "meta" builds in games like this, where you have so much choice and room to experiment.
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Post by RadicalRex on Mar 5, 2024 19:50:54 GMT
JuniorFEThanks a lot, I'll experiment a little with poise and will get that armour you mentioned. While looking around online I noticed that the importance of poise seems to be related to your play style, especially if you're going for heavy and slow weapons, which of course makes sense as you're more likely to eat some hits but that isn't my style. I try to zoom around enemies not getting hit at all, in DS2 I'm powerstancing spears and it's worked nicely so far. Of course that doesn't mean poise is useless, of course I also get hit, but perhaps it explains why I got around pretty well so far with less than 10 poise. I also read today that spears do more damage the closer you are, I didn't think that might be a thing, gotta test that too. My damage output always felt a little random, maybe that was the reason.
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Post by suicida on Mar 13, 2024 8:15:55 GMT
Today is the 10th anniversary of Dark Souls 2's release in Japan (13th March 2014)
Happy Birthday, Dark Souls 2
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wunty
Full Member
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Post by wunty on Mar 13, 2024 9:05:13 GMT
10 YEARS!?!? ... ... They grow up so fast  |
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Post by Danno on Mar 20, 2024 18:31:27 GMT
WHAT IS THIS
(massive spoilers in video, see mod link below instead but my PC is guff so I won'tbe playing it anytime soon sadface)
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Post by Danno on Mar 20, 2024 18:36:20 GMT
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Post by RadicalRex on Mar 21, 2024 12:42:43 GMT
I saw that too, downloaded it yesterday, gave it a try and abandoned it after 1-2 hours. Once I found the intended first stage (last one I tried) I was puzzled by enemy health pools. E.g. among basic ghouls some die after 2 hits but other take over a dozen hits or 4-5 backstabs. Also too many tanky knights everywhere, although it seems you're supposed to just run past them.
I found 3 different bosses in this level and each of them had a Fire Giant-size health bar. In the first fucking level.
How about no
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zagibu
Junior Member
Posts: 1,940
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Post by zagibu on Mar 21, 2024 13:10:28 GMT
Anyone got their Dark Souls Trilogy Compendium already? Was supposed to be sent March 15, but haven't heard anything new.
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wunty
Full Member
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Post by wunty on Mar 21, 2024 13:19:27 GMT
Funnily enough was thinking about that earlier and tried to recall when the shipping date was meant to be. Not got mine and not heard anything for a while actually.
Edit: Amazon now saying 31 march.
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zagibu
Junior Member
Posts: 1,940
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Post by zagibu on Mar 26, 2024 11:29:51 GMT
I just received an email that my order has been processed. Seems it's really coming soon.
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(I did use the available NPC summons though, to be fair)
