My god, you must've pumped Endurance like crazy or were the slowest, clunkiest warrior ever.
Or had that equip weight ring as a permanent part of your inventory anyway.
Combination of the lot. Build didn't need to roll much in PvE, as that shield could take most hits, and it's very, very satisfying to block a Black Skeleton's spring attack then kill it with one counter.
Killed enough invading BPs to get to pure white character tendency, too.
Xagarath on
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Garret Dorigan"Why can't I be DLC for UMvC3?"Registered Userregular
edited August 2010
Oh, I haven't made an Epee update in a few...
Currently SL 105. Would have been done by now, but I decided to delevel my 24 Dex back to 16. (The physical damage went from +12 to +18, big whoop.) And, my maths were correct, basically, Epee +5 has 80+109 Fire damage. Tried the levels at Pure Black to get a feel of what NG+ would be like.
That's where the PvE aspect of this build falls to shit. While the Fire damage is impressive, there just isn't enough Physical dmg there to back it up. World 1 is passable if you're nimble, World 5 is even easier. Most of the game makes this build "Three-thrusts-and-I'm-done" but it is rather dangerous and isn't for the easily aggravated, especially when a normal enemy takes some strategy. Then again, there's always your magic to fall back on. I keep a Phosphorescent Pole as a backup, though a Moon War Scythe could also do the trick.
PvP though... that's where it's fun. In either setup, Phalanx behind a shield or Swashbuckler with Secret Dagger, it's both fun and it works. I'm more liking the Swashbuckler type, as playing like that reminds me a lot of Assassin's Creed. In fact, after I had that realization, I started carrying Kunai on me. It works well to stop someone who's running or locking them out of a heal. It does take some strategy and a lot of rolling, but it puts a new spin on the game.
So, TL;DR, final word. The Epee isn't really worth it on the PvE front, at least from NG+ and onwards, but PvP is very fun.
My god, you must've pumped Endurance like crazy or were the slowest, clunkiest warrior ever.
Or had that equip weight ring as a permanent part of your inventory anyway.
Combination of the lot. Build didn't need to roll much in PvE, as that shield could take most hits, and it's very, very satisfying to block a Black Skeleton's spring attack then kill it with one counter.
Killed enough invading BPs to get to pure white character tendency, too.
Oh I can imagine how satisfying bringing that giant thing down on a crunch skeleton would be. It's unfortunate that the weapon seems so... bad. Very lackluster scaling from Strength and almost no reason to upgrade it because it doesn't gain any damage or scaling? Weird.
Currently SL 105. Would have been done by now, but I decided to delevel my 24 Dex back to 16. (The physical damage went from +12 to +18, big whoop.) And, my maths were correct, basically, Epee +5 has 80+109 Fire damage. Tried the levels at Pure Black to get a feel of what NG+ would be like.
That's where the PvE aspect of this build falls to shit. While the Fire damage is impressive, there just isn't enough Physical dmg there to back it up. World 1 is passable if you're nimble, World 5 is even easier. Most of the game makes this build "Three-thrusts-and-I'm-done" but it is rather dangerous and isn't for the easily aggravated, especially when a normal enemy takes some strategy. Then again, there's always your magic to fall back on. I keep a Phosphorescent Pole as a backup, though a Moon War Scythe could also do the trick.
PvP though... that's where it's fun. In either setup, Phalanx behind a shield or Swashbuckler with Secret Dagger, it's both fun and it works. I'm more liking the Swashbuckler type, as playing like that reminds me a lot of Assassin's Creed. In fact, after I had that realization, I started carrying Kunai on me. It works well to stop someone who's running or locking them out of a heal. It does take some strategy and a lot of rolling, but it puts a new spin on the game.
So, TL;DR, final word. The Epee isn't really worth it on the PvE front, at least from NG+ and onwards, but PvP is very fun.
Hmm... good to see the update before I pursued 24 Magic. I'm curious though, is the Epee really that unique as far as its super fast parry time? Or are there other Rapier type weapons that use that same fast parry action?
I think the Paring Dagger is specially geared toward setting up parry/ripostes
Kazaka on
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MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
edited August 2010
I threw a steel shield + 5 ish on my spellsword just to make certain pve segments easier. Since I needed 18 str for uchigata anyway.
Wow that makes life so much easier! Block and cast in their faces! Heh.
I've beaten world 2, 3, 4 and up to 1-3. I just killed leechmonger in 5-1 and am going to burn my way through the rest of this world. Firestorm eats these bosses/giant creatures alive, it's really quite ridiculous. For everything else, there's [strike]mastercard[/strike] flame toss.
Morninglord on
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
Firestorm eats *everything* alive according to what I've read. Never have used it myself. God's Wrath is pretty fun though.
Unfortunately the first time I went into the Crystal Lizard nest on my latest character, one God's Wrath wasn't enough to kill the lizards using just the Talisman of God. So I ended up having to kill Scirvir... which I wasn't planning on. So I went back to 2-1, killed the Primeval Demon, got my Colorless, then realized I *really* should've brought a PFS for Scirvir. It ended up I couldn't fight him straight up at SL 70 with the gear and such I had on me... I ended up having to hyper mode arrow him... and I was running out of arrows. When I got him down to about 20% and he started trying to heal himself, I just had to rapid fire on him to knock him out of the casts, finally killed him and got my Talisman of Beasts.
Then, since I wanted to make sure I was in PBWT for optimal farming... I killed myself to get back up top and went immediately to the nest. ToB God's Wrath could indeed one shot the lizards. Unfortunately, I was getting so *much* stone and was already pretty full up on items, that I had to drop a bunch just to pick up more. Mostly Clearstone, I don't use it for anything anyway.
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
I figured discovering that his father was behind it all, or at least what an evil bastard the False King is, broke his spirit.
But suicide is just par for the course when it comes to this game. According to ingame vague mentions there is no god, only the Old One. Or at least that humans are mistakenly worshipping the Old One. And level 5-3? Yeah, thats were they dump their abortions and stillbirths.
Charming game, no?
Except you have the Acolytes worshiping some form of a Judeo-Christian god, and I doubt they're worshiping the Old One. That's more Sage Freke's speed.
My god, you must've pumped Endurance like crazy or were the slowest, clunkiest warrior ever.
Or had that equip weight ring as a permanent part of your inventory anyway.
Combination of the lot. Build didn't need to roll much in PvE, as that shield could take most hits, and it's very, very satisfying to block a Black Skeleton's spring attack then kill it with one counter.
Killed enough invading BPs to get to pure white character tendency, too.
Oh I can imagine how satisfying bringing that giant thing down on a crunch skeleton would be. It's unfortunate that the weapon seems so... bad. Very lackluster scaling from Strength and almost no reason to upgrade it because it doesn't gain any damage or scaling? Weird.
It's higher damage than an unupgraded DBS, and I'm channelling all the colourless souls on that one into the shield.
I figured discovering that his father was behind it all, or at least what an evil bastard the False King is, broke his spirit.
But suicide is just par for the course when it comes to this game. According to ingame vague mentions there is no god, only the Old One. Or at least that humans are mistakenly worshipping the Old One. And level 5-3? Yeah, thats were they dump their abortions and stillbirths.
Charming game, no?
Except you have the Acolytes worshiping some form of a Judeo-Christian god, and I doubt they're worshiping the Old One. That's more Sage Freke's speed.
Talk to Freke, he'll mention some stuff about who the priests are actually worshiping. Then compare the item text from the Talisman of God and the Talisman of Beasts.
And keep in mind, Miracles started working at exactly the same time Magic started to gain power as well.
I figured discovering that his father was behind it all, or at least what an evil bastard the False King is, broke his spirit.
But suicide is just par for the course when it comes to this game. According to ingame vague mentions there is no god, only the Old One. Or at least that humans are mistakenly worshipping the Old One. And level 5-3? Yeah, thats were they dump their abortions and stillbirths.
Charming game, no?
Except you have the Acolytes worshiping some form of a Judeo-Christian god, and I doubt they're worshiping the Old One. That's more Sage Freke's speed.
Talk to Freke, he'll mention some stuff about who the priests are actually worshiping. Then compare the item text from the Talisman of God and the Talisman of Beasts.
And keep in mind, Miracles started working at exactly the same time Magic started to gain power as well.
No joke, I just found this out today. Urbain mentions that miracles work here in Boletaria, and I noted that magic works in Boletaria in particular as well. Miracles and magic both appear to stem from the same font - the Old One. There's no God and Miracles are just purified(?) magery.
/wrists?
Kazaka on
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
edited August 2010
Yuria is the best NPC, so point in Mage's favor. (Though I also like the Umbasa girl)
Currently SL 105. Would have been done by now, but I decided to delevel my 24 Dex back to 16. (The physical damage went from +12 to +18, big whoop.) And, my maths were correct, basically, Epee +5 has 80+109 Fire damage. Tried the levels at Pure Black to get a feel of what NG+ would be like.
That's where the PvE aspect of this build falls to shit. While the Fire damage is impressive, there just isn't enough Physical dmg there to back it up. World 1 is passable if you're nimble, World 5 is even easier. Most of the game makes this build "Three-thrusts-and-I'm-done" but it is rather dangerous and isn't for the easily aggravated, especially when a normal enemy takes some strategy. Then again, there's always your magic to fall back on. I keep a Phosphorescent Pole as a backup, though a Moon War Scythe could also do the trick.
PvP though... that's where it's fun. In either setup, Phalanx behind a shield or Swashbuckler with Secret Dagger, it's both fun and it works. I'm more liking the Swashbuckler type, as playing like that reminds me a lot of Assassin's Creed. In fact, after I had that realization, I started carrying Kunai on me. It works well to stop someone who's running or locking them out of a heal. It does take some strategy and a lot of rolling, but it puts a new spin on the game.
So, TL;DR, final word. The Epee isn't really worth it on the PvE front, at least from NG+ and onwards, but PvP is very fun.
Hmm... good to see the update before I pursued 24 Magic. I'm curious though, is the Epee really that unique as far as its super fast parry time? Or are there other Rapier type weapons that use that same fast parry action?
*Note that the following, while answering your question, is written from a PvP mindset as that is where the Epee has it's strength*
No, all Rapiers have that same super fast parry animation, as well as the L1 'backhanded poke' style attack. The draw of the Epee is that while it has the same animations as other Rapiers, it also has fire damage.
The fact of the latter statement is of extreme importance to the 'Swashbuckler' (As I'm now calling it.) because fire damage causes a few more frames of recovery lag for the person being hit by it. With this, the L1 poke can be used to roll into a R1-spam Dagger combo safely, as there is normally too much Attack Lag either after the L1 poke or at the first swing of the Dagger's R1-spam with a "normal" Rapier-class weapon. Additional note, due to this increased recovery lag, the Epee's L1 can stunlock combo with itself (L1-spam) and is the only Rapier that can do so. Thus, it is situational on which combo you want to use, depending on your opponent's MagicDef and FireDef, even if a Crescent Secret Dagger will do more damage.
So, overall, the combination of the super fast parry and the recovery lag increase from the fire damage (Letting you stunlock) are why the Epee is unique for this build. (Also, for the Phalanx variant, the increased recovery lag allows you to near stunlock from the 'Shield-poke'. This allows you to play on your opponent's adrenaline, forcing them to make mistakes for you to capitalize on as they hammer on the roll button.)
I think the Paring Dagger is specially geared toward setting up parry/ripostes
True, but choosing the Paring Dagger you lose out on 1500 damage (My record so far.) ripostes with a Crescent Secret Dagger or miss out on the increased recovery lag from the Epee. An awesome weapon for sure, but it neither has the reach of the Epee on the parry, nor the damage of the Secret Dagger.
Sounds neat, I haven't messed around with rapiers to know they can poke from the left hand.
Well, I just finished up about everything there is to do on my MC/BBS character... I can't do the Mephistopheles quest because Biorr never comes back to the Nexus after the 1-4 dragon fight, but eh.
I hunted down every last Crystal Lizard I had left in the game, the ones in 4-4 are annoying as shit just because you have to clear the rays every time.
I suppose once I kill Allant, there'll be one more set of lizards through world 1 that I could go back through and get... hmm.
I *can* go ahead and turn world 3 and 5 PB and kill the BPs and Primeval Demons there... I suppose I may as well really.
Sounds neat, I haven't messed around with rapiers to know they can poke from the left hand.
Well, I just finished up about everything there is to do on my MC/BBS character... I can't do the Mephistopheles quest because Biorr never comes back to the Nexus after the 1-4 dragon fight, but eh.
I hunted down every last Crystal Lizard I had left in the game, the ones in 4-4 are annoying as shit just because you have to clear the rays every time.
I suppose once I kill Allant, there'll be one more set of lizards through world 1 that I could go back through and get... hmm.
I *can* go ahead and turn world 3 and 5 PB and kill the BPs and Primeval Demons there... I suppose I may as well really.
You can still do the Meph quests, it'll just skip anyone who isn't present. Now, it kinda sucks because you won't get the Colorless Demon Soul for killing Biorr, but you'll still get 2 Stone of Ephemeral Eyes, a Colorless Demon Soul, and the Foe's Ring (this loot list assuming Ostrava is gone as well).
Yeah, I was looking at that on the wiki... somewhat tempted. Though one of the things I was going to try and do was once I killed Allant and did the first part of the 'end game' thing, I was going to try to teleport out or something and get Soulsucker before going into NG+.
Not sure if it's possible though... I know the wiki mentions that you can get Northern Regalia made at the end of your first game if you get out of the final battle after grabbing Soulbrandt, but I'm not sure if you have the Maiden's Soul by that point or not.
Yeah, I was looking at that on the wiki... somewhat tempted. Though one of the things I was going to try and do was once I killed Allant and did the first part of the 'end game' thing, I was going to try to teleport out or something and get Soulsucker before going into NG+.
Not sure if it's possible though... I know the wiki mentions that you can get Northern Regalia made at the end of your first game if you get out of the final battle after grabbing Soulbrandt, but I'm not sure if you have the Maiden's Soul by that point or not.
You get the Soul you need for Soul Sucker at the end of the credits, so no, it's not possible to do that.
Damn, well good to know. I guess I can go ahead and do the Mephistopheles quest real quick tonight before I take out Allant and finish my first game of Demon's Souls... Particularly I'd like to make up for the Colorless I lost/didn't get from the 3-2 Primeval. I'd heard about the trick to reload immediately if the primeval doesn't drop the soul, and was planning to do that. However when I got there and started killing the two creepy face bugs, one was getting behind me while I was locked on and as I was trying to R2 it with the BBS, I did one too many times and killed the primeval demon too.
Normally I don't think this would've been a problem, however I *think* one of the two face bugs dropped something, which saved my game. So my reload didn't bring the Primeval back. Ah well. The only thing I want to level off hand is my DSS anyway.
Oh, last night I finished off world 3 on this character, got the 3-3 boss dead on only my second try! Which is somewhat amazing I suppose because this character is 125 or so, right in the range to get hit with all the actually PvP built players. I don't remember exactly what I did, I think I cast Light Weapon, two-handed my BBS and just sliced the shit out of him, though he cast Warding right as I entered... didn't help against a lot of the magic damage I slammed him with. He *did* trigger my Second Chance, but other than that, it didn't go too badly.
The fight before that I had to fight another BBS user, and it's kind of what he did, two-handed and rolled around raping me with server lag. I swear, I've watched myself get 'hit' when the swing was nowhere near me. Considering how precise Demon's Souls is otherwise, I don't like how PvP plays out with the realties of lag.
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MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
edited August 2010
I've backstabbed a guy, the whole animation, and he didn't take any damage at all.
On the other hand, I've seen my soul ray completely miss a guy, but then he dies.
Lag goes both ways, so it's something you kind of have to get used to and predict rather than react.
Morninglord on
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
Having finally got round to trying Blind, I'm not impressed.
Dex build needs something else, I guess.
Xagarath on
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MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
edited August 2010
The interesting part about demon souls pvp is the range of strategies that can be employed in every fight. I had a guy come up and whack me with baby nail until I got hit with plague, then start backstabbing me with a different weapon. I was like wtf are you on? Then I realised my healing herbs were only healing me for half. (Turns out poison and plague both cut healing in half)
Eventually I died just from attrition, since it's a huge risk to take a herb in a battle given you are so open, and taking that risk got me backstabbed once.
Or even simple things like baiting a guy to swing at you then attacking him while he's in an animation.
Or whacking him repeatedly then doing soul ray right at the end, where they normally will think to attack you and let their shield down but instead eat a stun + huge damage.
Mind games and strategies.
Btw did you guys know acid cloud works on garl vinland? It'll destroy his equipment.
Morninglord on
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
I seem to win an much higher amount of PvP by wildly attacking with a 2-handed polearm (War Scythe, Halberd, Mirdan Hammer) compared to going in with any strategy, which is a little frustrating at times.
Mephistopheles' quest complete. I find it amusing that the bitchastard attacked me after all of that. Seriously? At this point I'm the baddest mofo this side of NG+, you ain't got shit. Attempted to soul suck me even, I just hacked them to pieces and took my extra parrying dagger, epee rapier and accursed ring, woo! Stupid ring... but at least I have my Foe's Ring now.
I do feel like a douche sitting at PBCT though... I'm trying to figure out what might be a good level to sit at with my blue phantom sign at SL 127 to grind my way back up, but I'm not having much luck. Brings to mind the game mechanics... I assume that as long as I'm in the level range, it doesn't matter if someone is in NG+ or ++ or whatever, right?
At the moment I'm trying to sit at the beginning of 1-1 with my blue sign down, figuring that's maybe the best chance of finding someone around 127... no luck so far though.
Maybe I shouldn't bother and just finish the game, eh?
Dranyth on
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MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
I seem to win an much higher amount of PvP by wildly attacking with a 2-handed polearm (War Scythe, Halberd, Mirdan Hammer) compared to going in with any strategy, which is a little frustrating at times.
Conversely, last time I tried to do that I was calmly blown the fuck away by a very collected mage. No matter what I tried, I could never hit him.
So I try to mix it up a bit more now.
Dranth go and kill the first reaper in 4-2 then sit in the room and wait for black phantoms to pop in. It's a popular black phantom spot since everybody grinds there.
I still have another ten levels to go, then I'll be grinding out the rest of the gear I want and starting a ng++ to do just that.
One really nasty thing I do on my faith guy now is poison them right at the start. It's a quick cast and cuts their healing.
Morninglord on
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
Er... crap, that's right, killing BPs is for CT. Dammit.
Ah well, I did my first blue helping mission, I switched from 1-1 to 1-3 and someone pulled me in. I don't know if he was in just NG+ or above that but fuck some of those enemies were annoying. Not only that, but he was in PBWT which meant they were even tougher, *and* we had to fight the double Fat Minister BP ambush. Oh my god those things are fucking insane on that. I did die once relatively early on, not being careful, but I put my stone down and he came back to summon me again. After that I started casting Second Chance every time I could when it was down... and it was down often. Solo I'd definitely be more methodical, but I felt a bit rushed...
The guy got his Colorless soul from the primeval too, watched his character pick it up. When we got to the portcullis part... Ostrava wasn't around, so he must've gotten killed earlier on, or the host killed him, either way.
We lost our other Blue to a death before the last big path up to the boss, so we did it ourselves and once we got to the boss fog, apparently there was another blue waiting there, host picked him up too. So we went in, I got Light Weapon up and followed. Penetrator hit *so* fucking hard. Part of his sword's damage must be magic, which I didn't realize. Even through my shield I was taking like 1/4th my HP in damage. I survived the fight though, rated the host an A, didn't see what I got rated yet, guess I'll have to put down my sign again to check and see that.
Was fun though... and now I'm alive so I guess I can go into 4-2 and wait for BPs. Of course, I also am not very good at PvP, so this may end up being not very useful for getting my CT back up. Ah well, we'll see.
Well... you might be in trouble then! I know there are other tactics but, I presume you're trying some of those.
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BarcardiAll the WizardsUnder A Rock: AfganistanRegistered Userregular
edited August 2010
Just did the math. For me to get all the trophies i have to beat the game twice more to get all the spells, get 1 pure bladestone (ick), get 1 pure moonlightstone (????? shit could take forever, random), 4 chunks of suckerstone (easy), 3 chunks of marrowstone (easy), and 2 shards of faintstone (cake)
All and all.... realllllllly wish there was an easy way to get pure moonlight and bladestones.
Fairly certain I already have Pure Moonlightstones (maybe just one). Pure Bladestone I don't have yet I don't believe... that one's the real bitch.
But otherwise, having 20 Luck just fucking throws things at you so far, it's ridiculous. I remember trying to get a Pure Darkmoonstone on my first character to finish off my Crescent Broadsword... could never get one. I believe my MC/BBS character now has 3 fucking Pures. Argh!
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ElldrenIs a woman dammitceterum censeoRegistered Userregular
edited August 2010
flamelurker is giving me so much trouble with my thief character.
my arrows hardly hurt him and he kills me through attrition
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fuck gendered marketing
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
edited August 2010
Magic.
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MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
flamelurker is giving me so much trouble with my thief character.
my arrows hardly hurt him and he kills me through attrition
Can you learn soul arrow? I killed him with that the first time on my faith guy, after he hit his berserk point I just threw arrows at him until he died. His magic is still 10. :P
The second time I could do much better damage so it wasn't as big a problem.
Morninglord on
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
Demon's Souls completed! I got Allant down, it's only the second time I've ever fought him, the first time was many months ago on my initial (very magic-based) character. I had a couple of sort of close calls. His Charge move is bullshit, he doesn't even always come towards you and sometimes he follows you through your roll and hits you anyway. I think he broke my Second Chance twice.
Up on the Pantheon level, my character is on one of the Uniters of the World pedestals, No. 14 in fact at the moment. Not sure how often those change or anything... 29 and a half hours, not bad. 505 death count, geezus.
Oh yeah, when I got back into 1-1 in NG+ (which is still stupidly easy by the way), a BP invaded me... before I even got to the first fog gate. So I finished fighting the last few enemies right before that fog gate, then decided the BP should be pretty close. So I went back into that dark bunker room and started walking slowly towards the door to peek out... right as the BP walked into me. I immediately started attacking 'quickly' with my Northern Regalia (PBCT, so max damage), and destroyed the invader. Which then dropped the effectiveness of my Northern Regalia, but eh. Kind of a neat sword, very powerful. Anyway, 1-1 down.
An update: Well that wasn't as hard as I thought it would be... uh, PWCT once more.
This might be considered bad PvP form, but I decided to go into Body Form in 4-1... I got invaded and the fucker saw me go to hide behind the wall (because I had been clearing skeletons while waiting.) He cast Curse Weapon on his Claymore I think it was, and came and stunlock raped me.
So I thought, alright... came back in, used a revival stone and waited back at the archstone, since BPs spawn in front of that spot. First guy who invaded was a *cheap* motherfucker mage Firestorm build, who raped me. Well, at least now I've seen what Firestorm does...
I pulled some more Ephemeral Eyes out of the bank and revived in 4-1, waiting behind where BPs spawn for invaders. I was using my BBS and after the first kill, I decided I may as well two-hand it for better damage. I proceeded to get 4 or 5 kills, including that fucker firestorm mage twice more. Once I murdered him and the second time we killed each other at the same time, which was weird. I got credit though. I can't remember if it was the second or third fight with him, but he got away from me initially and cast Warding on himself. Didn't help a whole lot against the BBS. Muhahaha. I killed a naked guy with a club and a heavily armored guy too. Those 4 or 5 kills were all I needed to get back to Pure White, and my Northern Regalia is useful again!
So, is hiding back by the archstone for invaders a dick move?
Dranyth on
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BarcardiAll the WizardsUnder A Rock: AfganistanRegistered Userregular
edited August 2010
They cannot rate you, and a vast majority of the time they are designed to cheap kill you, so i say no. But I am a more co-op person.
I tried to get the pure bladestone from the black phantom katana skeleton for 2+ hours tonight, in the end I am now about 40 levels stronger, but no pure bladestone. Anyone have any magical suggestions on how to get it?
Posts
Combination of the lot. Build didn't need to roll much in PvE, as that shield could take most hits, and it's very, very satisfying to block a Black Skeleton's spring attack then kill it with one counter.
Killed enough invading BPs to get to pure white character tendency, too.
Currently SL 105. Would have been done by now, but I decided to delevel my 24 Dex back to 16. (The physical damage went from +12 to +18, big whoop.) And, my maths were correct, basically, Epee +5 has 80+109 Fire damage. Tried the levels at Pure Black to get a feel of what NG+ would be like.
That's where the PvE aspect of this build falls to shit. While the Fire damage is impressive, there just isn't enough Physical dmg there to back it up. World 1 is passable if you're nimble, World 5 is even easier. Most of the game makes this build "Three-thrusts-and-I'm-done" but it is rather dangerous and isn't for the easily aggravated, especially when a normal enemy takes some strategy. Then again, there's always your magic to fall back on. I keep a Phosphorescent Pole as a backup, though a Moon War Scythe could also do the trick.
PvP though... that's where it's fun. In either setup, Phalanx behind a shield or Swashbuckler with Secret Dagger, it's both fun and it works. I'm more liking the Swashbuckler type, as playing like that reminds me a lot of Assassin's Creed. In fact, after I had that realization, I started carrying Kunai on me. It works well to stop someone who's running or locking them out of a heal. It does take some strategy and a lot of rolling, but it puts a new spin on the game.
So, TL;DR, final word. The Epee isn't really worth it on the PvE front, at least from NG+ and onwards, but PvP is very fun.
This is my exact setup for my spellsword.
Anyone near sl 100 that wants to do some pvp with me?
Oh I can imagine how satisfying bringing that giant thing down on a crunch skeleton would be. It's unfortunate that the weapon seems so... bad. Very lackluster scaling from Strength and almost no reason to upgrade it because it doesn't gain any damage or scaling? Weird.
Hmm... good to see the update before I pursued 24 Magic. I'm curious though, is the Epee really that unique as far as its super fast parry time? Or are there other Rapier type weapons that use that same fast parry action?
Wow that makes life so much easier! Block and cast in their faces! Heh.
I've beaten world 2, 3, 4 and up to 1-3. I just killed leechmonger in 5-1 and am going to burn my way through the rest of this world. Firestorm eats these bosses/giant creatures alive, it's really quite ridiculous. For everything else, there's [strike]mastercard[/strike] flame toss.
Unfortunately the first time I went into the Crystal Lizard nest on my latest character, one God's Wrath wasn't enough to kill the lizards using just the Talisman of God. So I ended up having to kill Scirvir... which I wasn't planning on. So I went back to 2-1, killed the Primeval Demon, got my Colorless, then realized I *really* should've brought a PFS for Scirvir. It ended up I couldn't fight him straight up at SL 70 with the gear and such I had on me... I ended up having to hyper mode arrow him... and I was running out of arrows. When I got him down to about 20% and he started trying to heal himself, I just had to rapid fire on him to knock him out of the casts, finally killed him and got my Talisman of Beasts.
Then, since I wanted to make sure I was in PBWT for optimal farming... I killed myself to get back up top and went immediately to the nest. ToB God's Wrath could indeed one shot the lizards. Unfortunately, I was getting so *much* stone and was already pretty full up on items, that I had to drop a bunch just to pick up more. Mostly Clearstone, I don't use it for anything anyway.
Except you have the Acolytes worshiping some form of a Judeo-Christian god, and I doubt they're worshiping the Old One. That's more Sage Freke's speed.
It's higher damage than an unupgraded DBS, and I'm channelling all the colourless souls on that one into the shield.
Talk to Freke, he'll mention some stuff about who the priests are actually worshiping. Then compare the item text from the Talisman of God and the Talisman of Beasts.
And keep in mind, Miracles started working at exactly the same time Magic started to gain power as well.
/wrists?
I like Yuria too.
*Note that the following, while answering your question, is written from a PvP mindset as that is where the Epee has it's strength*
No, all Rapiers have that same super fast parry animation, as well as the L1 'backhanded poke' style attack. The draw of the Epee is that while it has the same animations as other Rapiers, it also has fire damage.
The fact of the latter statement is of extreme importance to the 'Swashbuckler' (As I'm now calling it.) because fire damage causes a few more frames of recovery lag for the person being hit by it. With this, the L1 poke can be used to roll into a R1-spam Dagger combo safely, as there is normally too much Attack Lag either after the L1 poke or at the first swing of the Dagger's R1-spam with a "normal" Rapier-class weapon. Additional note, due to this increased recovery lag, the Epee's L1 can stunlock combo with itself (L1-spam) and is the only Rapier that can do so. Thus, it is situational on which combo you want to use, depending on your opponent's MagicDef and FireDef, even if a Crescent Secret Dagger will do more damage.
So, overall, the combination of the super fast parry and the recovery lag increase from the fire damage (Letting you stunlock) are why the Epee is unique for this build. (Also, for the Phalanx variant, the increased recovery lag allows you to near stunlock from the 'Shield-poke'. This allows you to play on your opponent's adrenaline, forcing them to make mistakes for you to capitalize on as they hammer on the roll button.)
True, but choosing the Paring Dagger you lose out on 1500 damage (My record so far.) ripostes with a Crescent Secret Dagger or miss out on the increased recovery lag from the Epee. An awesome weapon for sure, but it neither has the reach of the Epee on the parry, nor the damage of the Secret Dagger.
Well, I just finished up about everything there is to do on my MC/BBS character... I can't do the Mephistopheles quest because Biorr never comes back to the Nexus after the 1-4 dragon fight, but eh.
I hunted down every last Crystal Lizard I had left in the game, the ones in 4-4 are annoying as shit just because you have to clear the rays every time.
I suppose once I kill Allant, there'll be one more set of lizards through world 1 that I could go back through and get... hmm.
I *can* go ahead and turn world 3 and 5 PB and kill the BPs and Primeval Demons there... I suppose I may as well really.
You can still do the Meph quests, it'll just skip anyone who isn't present. Now, it kinda sucks because you won't get the Colorless Demon Soul for killing Biorr, but you'll still get 2 Stone of Ephemeral Eyes, a Colorless Demon Soul, and the Foe's Ring (this loot list assuming Ostrava is gone as well).
Not sure if it's possible though... I know the wiki mentions that you can get Northern Regalia made at the end of your first game if you get out of the final battle after grabbing Soulbrandt, but I'm not sure if you have the Maiden's Soul by that point or not.
You get the Soul you need for Soul Sucker at the end of the credits, so no, it's not possible to do that.
Normally I don't think this would've been a problem, however I *think* one of the two face bugs dropped something, which saved my game. So my reload didn't bring the Primeval back. Ah well. The only thing I want to level off hand is my DSS anyway.
Oh, last night I finished off world 3 on this character, got the 3-3 boss dead on only my second try! Which is somewhat amazing I suppose because this character is 125 or so, right in the range to get hit with all the actually PvP built players. I don't remember exactly what I did, I think I cast Light Weapon, two-handed my BBS and just sliced the shit out of him, though he cast Warding right as I entered... didn't help against a lot of the magic damage I slammed him with. He *did* trigger my Second Chance, but other than that, it didn't go too badly.
The fight before that I had to fight another BBS user, and it's kind of what he did, two-handed and rolled around raping me with server lag. I swear, I've watched myself get 'hit' when the swing was nowhere near me. Considering how precise Demon's Souls is otherwise, I don't like how PvP plays out with the realties of lag.
On the other hand, I've seen my soul ray completely miss a guy, but then he dies.
Lag goes both ways, so it's something you kind of have to get used to and predict rather than react.
Dex build needs something else, I guess.
Eventually I died just from attrition, since it's a huge risk to take a herb in a battle given you are so open, and taking that risk got me backstabbed once.
Or even simple things like baiting a guy to swing at you then attacking him while he's in an animation.
Or whacking him repeatedly then doing soul ray right at the end, where they normally will think to attack you and let their shield down but instead eat a stun + huge damage.
Mind games and strategies.
Btw did you guys know acid cloud works on garl vinland? It'll destroy his equipment.
I do feel like a douche sitting at PBCT though... I'm trying to figure out what might be a good level to sit at with my blue phantom sign at SL 127 to grind my way back up, but I'm not having much luck. Brings to mind the game mechanics... I assume that as long as I'm in the level range, it doesn't matter if someone is in NG+ or ++ or whatever, right?
At the moment I'm trying to sit at the beginning of 1-1 with my blue sign down, figuring that's maybe the best chance of finding someone around 127... no luck so far though.
Maybe I shouldn't bother and just finish the game, eh?
Conversely, last time I tried to do that I was calmly blown the fuck away by a very collected mage. No matter what I tried, I could never hit him.
So I try to mix it up a bit more now.
Dranth go and kill the first reaper in 4-2 then sit in the room and wait for black phantoms to pop in. It's a popular black phantom spot since everybody grinds there.
I still have another ten levels to go, then I'll be grinding out the rest of the gear I want and starting a ng++ to do just that.
One really nasty thing I do on my faith guy now is poison them right at the start. It's a quick cast and cuts their healing.
Ah well, I did my first blue helping mission, I switched from 1-1 to 1-3 and someone pulled me in. I don't know if he was in just NG+ or above that but fuck some of those enemies were annoying. Not only that, but he was in PBWT which meant they were even tougher, *and* we had to fight the double Fat Minister BP ambush. Oh my god those things are fucking insane on that. I did die once relatively early on, not being careful, but I put my stone down and he came back to summon me again. After that I started casting Second Chance every time I could when it was down... and it was down often. Solo I'd definitely be more methodical, but I felt a bit rushed...
The guy got his Colorless soul from the primeval too, watched his character pick it up. When we got to the portcullis part... Ostrava wasn't around, so he must've gotten killed earlier on, or the host killed him, either way.
We lost our other Blue to a death before the last big path up to the boss, so we did it ourselves and once we got to the boss fog, apparently there was another blue waiting there, host picked him up too. So we went in, I got Light Weapon up and followed. Penetrator hit *so* fucking hard. Part of his sword's damage must be magic, which I didn't realize. Even through my shield I was taking like 1/4th my HP in damage. I survived the fight though, rated the host an A, didn't see what I got rated yet, guess I'll have to put down my sign again to check and see that.
Was fun though... and now I'm alive so I guess I can go into 4-2 and wait for BPs. Of course, I also am not very good at PvP, so this may end up being not very useful for getting my CT back up. Ah well, we'll see.
At least one will generally invade if you're helping someone finish 1-3, 4-1 or 4-2.
I want his armor, but not that badly.
You don't have to be Blue Phantoming... you just need to kill invading BPs.
Kazaka... do you have access to Poison Cloud?
No. I would've tried that. Hell, my backstabs don't do much.
All and all.... realllllllly wish there was an easy way to get pure moonlight and bladestones.
But otherwise, having 20 Luck just fucking throws things at you so far, it's ridiculous. I remember trying to get a Pure Darkmoonstone on my first character to finish off my Crescent Broadsword... could never get one. I believe my MC/BBS character now has 3 fucking Pures. Argh!
my arrows hardly hurt him and he kills me through attrition
Can you learn soul arrow? I killed him with that the first time on my faith guy, after he hit his berserk point I just threw arrows at him until he died. His magic is still 10. :P
The second time I could do much better damage so it wasn't as big a problem.
Up on the Pantheon level, my character is on one of the Uniters of the World pedestals, No. 14 in fact at the moment. Not sure how often those change or anything... 29 and a half hours, not bad. 505 death count, geezus.
Oh yeah, when I got back into 1-1 in NG+ (which is still stupidly easy by the way), a BP invaded me... before I even got to the first fog gate. So I finished fighting the last few enemies right before that fog gate, then decided the BP should be pretty close. So I went back into that dark bunker room and started walking slowly towards the door to peek out... right as the BP walked into me. I immediately started attacking 'quickly' with my Northern Regalia (PBCT, so max damage), and destroyed the invader. Which then dropped the effectiveness of my Northern Regalia, but eh. Kind of a neat sword, very powerful. Anyway, 1-1 down.
This might be considered bad PvP form, but I decided to go into Body Form in 4-1... I got invaded and the fucker saw me go to hide behind the wall (because I had been clearing skeletons while waiting.) He cast Curse Weapon on his Claymore I think it was, and came and stunlock raped me.
So I thought, alright... came back in, used a revival stone and waited back at the archstone, since BPs spawn in front of that spot. First guy who invaded was a *cheap* motherfucker mage Firestorm build, who raped me. Well, at least now I've seen what Firestorm does...
I pulled some more Ephemeral Eyes out of the bank and revived in 4-1, waiting behind where BPs spawn for invaders. I was using my BBS and after the first kill, I decided I may as well two-hand it for better damage. I proceeded to get 4 or 5 kills, including that fucker firestorm mage twice more. Once I murdered him and the second time we killed each other at the same time, which was weird. I got credit though. I can't remember if it was the second or third fight with him, but he got away from me initially and cast Warding on himself. Didn't help a whole lot against the BBS. Muhahaha. I killed a naked guy with a club and a heavily armored guy too. Those 4 or 5 kills were all I needed to get back to Pure White, and my Northern Regalia is useful again!
So, is hiding back by the archstone for invaders a dick move?
I tried to get the pure bladestone from the black phantom katana skeleton for 2+ hours tonight, in the end I am now about 40 levels stronger, but no pure bladestone. Anyone have any magical suggestions on how to get it?