I've been waiting for someone to produce a pvp centric early level build I could steal. And I've also wanted to play a magic build. I'm too lazy to work it out on my own because I never use magic.
Then BOOM WALKER TEXAS RANGER Chuck Norrises his build in here and I'm all "Yoink!"
If some days you just want to kill other players but not in a bad way like griefing noobs in undead burg, but in a good way like shooting havels/giants/moms/dads in the back with soul spear after pretending to be bush for half an hour, then this is the build for you.
Enchanted Rapier +4 at 45 Int does 1140 ar with a parry/riposte against the hollows in the Parish, add hornet ring and damage goes up to over 1500. Still only at SL40, search-and-destroy build lookin' goood !
Builds like that are why I two hand everything. Im ok with dying if I screw up, but parrys just feel cheap
Two handing wont help you, once your stamina goes its dark bead time. Find it strange you think parrys are cheap considering theyre one of the most difficult moves to pull off in the game, especially in pvp, or is it just a case of whatever kills you is cheap cos you died and they didnt ?
I've been thinking about PVP and Covenants and Dark Souls 2.
One thing I think could use a revamp is whatever the equivalent of the Darkmoon Covenant. Right now it just doesn't seem to work right to me. It's purpose seems like it SHOULD be the Anti-Darkwraith Covenant. But it's really not. It's often just another flavor of Darkwraith. So a few ideas.
1) Remove, or at least lessen, "Sin" acquired via PvE acts. I suppose some might still make sense from a story point of view, but I think a greater focus on actual PvP "sinners" would be an improvement when coupled with step 2
2) Spirits of Vengeance can invade people who have killed the area boss. Go with me on this. If we're talking about going after Darkwraiths who invade and kill players as being the goal of the Darkmoon Covenant, then we have a problem. Most of those guys are in areas - Anor Londo, the Parish, etc - where they've already killed the boss. They are completely safe from being invaded by Spirits of Vengeance, meanwhile can slaughter people with impunity. That means not much Vengeancing is going on. By allowing Darkmoons to not be blocked by a dead boss, they truly become hunters of the guilty. Nowhere is safe.
+1
MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
Enchanted Rapier +4 at 45 Int does 1140 ar with a parry/riposte against the hollows in the Parish, add hornet ring and damage goes up to over 1500. Still only at SL40, search-and-destroy build lookin' goood !
Builds like that are why I two hand everything. Im ok with dying if I screw up, but parrys just feel cheap
Two handing wont help you, once your stamina goes its dark bead time. Find it strange you think parrys are cheap considering theyre one of the most difficult moves to pull off in the game, especially in pvp, or is it just a case of whatever kills you is cheap cos you died and they didnt ?
No he's saying he two hands because he thinks the damage is cheap, not because he thinks it will beat your build.
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Oh, for sure two handing will kill the build, most anything will kill it. Thats why its a glass cannon. It was that "parrys feel cheap" that i didnt get.
It just struck me that the enjoyment a lot of people get from character creation in Dark Souls makes it a bit like a gritty fantasy version of The Sims. Which is cool.
So much PVP in Ooalice township. Had a few really intense down to a slither of health each fights. I got significantly better at dodging WOG, poison daggers and other spells ( though homing soul masses still get me eventually). I've taken to trying to chat up people I face - win or lose. One poor guy was new to PvP and I invaded him like.. 5 times.
I also fought Someone with the gamer tag "PA Bendery" who said PA did indeed stand for Penny Arcade. First time that I'm aware of that I've encountered a PAer unintentionally.
So much PVP in Ooalice township. Had a few really intense down to a slither of health each fights. I got significantly better at dodging WOG, poison daggers and other spells ( though homing soul masses still get me eventually). I've taken to trying to chat up people I face - win or lose. One poor guy was new to PvP and I invaded him like.. 5 times.
I also fought Someone with the gamer tag "PA Bendery" who said PA did indeed stand for Penny Arcade. First time that I'm aware of that I've encountered a PAer unintentionally.
Yeah, I was as surprised as you were, sorry for being underhanded in our second to last encounter, I was waiting for my friend to come back so we could run oolacile. But i got what i deserved in our last one
It just struck me that the enjoyment a lot of people get from character creation in Dark Souls makes it a bit like a gritty fantasy version of The Sims. Which is cool.
It just struck me that the enjoyment a lot of people get from character creation in Dark Souls makes it a bit like a gritty fantasy version of The Sims. Which is cool.
It's also a lot like Diablo 2 in that regard.
What? Diablo 2 had no customization(unless you count picking a ready-made class and then changing the gear as customization).
Diablo 2 may not have had the blank slate that DS has, but it still had choices that made a difference. I know this because all of mine wound up ending in failure whereas other people have been able to beat the game. :P
I forgot how much I hate those fucking crows in the Painted World. One hit kills piss me off.
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MordaRazgromМорда РазгромRuling the Taffer KingdomRegistered Userregular
I have recently restarted in Dark Souls. My magetank is so ridiculously OP on the second playthrough I don't even find it enjoyable anymore. When you're a jack-of-all-trades kind of character, combining Sorcery, Strength, and Pyromancy, there really is nothing that can stand in your way for long. I think the only thing that's truly difficult about New Game+ is that the monsters hit a lot harder, they don't seem to have unbelivable health...at least their health seems to match my weapon upgrades, but their damage is through the roof. This is possibly due to the fact that I have never ever bothered to upgrade any of my armors.
There are two characters I'm building, and I'm going all Sims on them.
1) My "Romeo" character. I have always been fascinated by medieval rapier duelists, so I decided to recreate one! He wields a rapier and a parrying dagger, and this has to be one of the most challenging things I've ever done in a game. I have to get the parries off just right, but I love the moveset of the thrusting swords, I can do a quick stab, then a quick hop back while slashing, then go in for a megastab, it's very satisfying and most enemies in Dark Souls don't have an effective answer to such a tactic. Indeed it is an unbelievably precise build, which leaves almost no room for error, but so much fun.
2) Viking matriarch. My second character is a Zweihander juggernaut. I remember reading a lot of love regarding the Zweihander and I never really understood, boy do I understand now! I'm pretty proud to say that I've managed to win for the very first time against a Darkwraith the other night. I cheesed it a little bit, of course, but I feel no shame whatsoever. The overhand Zweihander power-attack is a monster, and the opponent was using some kind of katana, obviously meant as a parry/backstab type of thing. I coaxed them into coming into a very narrow stairs, then just spammed the power-attack over and over.
The variety of this game is just intense. I have to control my urge to make a jack-of-all-trades character, which I generally do in all games, because I don't want an exact replica of my first character. So far "Romeo" is getting ready to take on Capra, and the Viking just took the Capra out, I'm taking it slow and steady
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I've been thinking about PVP and Covenants and Dark Souls 2.
One thing I think could use a revamp is whatever the equivalent of the Darkmoon Covenant. Right now it just doesn't seem to work right to me. It's purpose seems like it SHOULD be the Anti-Darkwraith Covenant. But it's really not. It's often just another flavor of Darkwraith. So a few ideas.
1) Remove, or at least lessen, "Sin" acquired via PvE acts. I suppose some might still make sense from a story point of view, but I think a greater focus on actual PvP "sinners" would be an improvement when coupled with step 2
2) Spirits of Vengeance can invade people who have killed the area boss. Go with me on this. If we're talking about going after Darkwraiths who invade and kill players as being the goal of the Darkmoon Covenant, then we have a problem. Most of those guys are in areas - Anor Londo, the Parish, etc - where they've already killed the boss. They are completely safe from being invaded by Spirits of Vengeance, meanwhile can slaughter people with impunity. That means not much Vengeancing is going on. By allowing Darkmoons to not be blocked by a dead boss, they truly become hunters of the guilty. Nowhere is safe.
I think the problem with covenants is that they tend to give just a little bit of benefit but they're completely unrelated to each other.
How about this -- if you're a darkwraith or gravelord, your likelihood of being invaded by one of the "vengeance" PVPers skyrockets. I think of it this way -- why should a Spirit of Vengeance attack a Sunbro? I mean, they could be a particularly bad sunbro, but in general a sunbro doesn't have lots of access to invasion tools. Or, being a Sunbro prevents you from doing invasions. Why not set up certain covenants as co-op only or invasion-only? For example:
Sunbro: co-op only, less likely to be invaded in general
Princess Guard: co-op only
Way of White: co-op only
Gravelords: invade everyone but gravelords, plus their funky ability
Darkwraith: invade everyone but darkwraiths
Darkmoons: invade gravelords, darkwraiths, non-covenanters.
I think the Forest Hunter covenant is probably the "best" at this in Dark Souls -- you only invade humans in the forest. That's neat, and is both "flavorful" and gives the group something specific. A lot of people enjoy the weird PVP, too, which I think is key. I don't think anyone should be immune from invasions, but I also think the dedicated servers thing will drastically help with this. Consider -- our current setup for Dark Souls means that for you to invade someone, you need to be in the same area and roughly the same level, AND the servers need to have put you "close" to each other on the network. You have a relatively small set of people to scan, and the server doesn't consistently poll new people.
On a dedicated server, the server can just say "You're a darkmoon, here are ALL of the 'bad guys' you can connect to" and go from there. Faster, easier, and more interesting. I do like the idea of special items that facilitate invasions under certain circumstances, like the covenant rings, and I hope they continue that. I too would be happy if joining certain covenants opened you up for invasions even if the boss was dead or you were dead.
MordaRazgromМорда РазгромRuling the Taffer KingdomRegistered Userregular
I must say that I used to absolutely hate the PvP in Dark Souls, I mean, with seething hatred, and I kind of considered every Darkwraith out there to be a giant silly goos. To me, it's just trolling, however, it is a part of the game, and, let's face it, the entire game is a giant troll meant to get you killed. Someone that's going in blind is going to die lots of times, to single out a Darkwraith as the worst troll of the game is to kind of negate that there are always so many other things in the game that laugh while they crush your hopes and dreams.
Once I changed my perspective, it kind of changed me to actually give me the ability to enjoy the game to its fullest. I still can't say that I particularly enjoy getting invaded by someone when I'm just minding my own business. With the multitude of other things going on, the negativity of it just kind of gets minimized in my mind. I don't see myself ever even attempting to go the Darkwraith path, but I do now allow myself to find entertainment in the PvP aspects of the game, and not Alt+F4 every time I get a message "Dark Spirit XXXXXXX just invaded". Don't hate, before I got comfortable with the game, the invasions were such a massive stress-factor to me that they killed my enjoyment of the game whatsoever. I understand that by Alt+F4'ing I'm being a silly goose to the other person, but I felt like it was unfair for a noob like me
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So, I'm about to start again with this game. I lost interest at SL60 or so with a pyromancer build carrying the furysword. Like, what should I do this time? Do the enemies scale or something because I remember the furysword feeling a bit weak when I gave up. I think I had just killed S&O and was walking around in that huge forest with the talking covenant catwolf.
Punch 'em all. Fist-class weapons only. I never finished that particular play-through, but damn if it wasn't one of the most intense experiences I've had with the game. I go back to him every now and then to fuck around, it's fun. Still can't believe I ever got past S&O with that build.
I had quite a run with my SL2 guy in NG+ today. Finished off Gargoyles, S&O (first try), Sith, 4 kings, Bed of bullshit and the hydra. Very fast this time around.
Movitz: Go a dex/pyro/int build. But focuse more on the weapons then pyro/magic. Weapons are way more fun and the furysword is kind of lame.
I had quite a run with my SL2 guy in NG+ today. Finished off Gargoyles, S&O (first try), Sith, 4 kings, Bed of bullshit and the hydra. Very fast this time around.
Movitz: Go a dex/pyro/int build. But focuse more on the weapons then pyro/magic. Weapons are way more fun and the furysword is kind of lame.
Right, I kindof liked the pyromancer weapon/magic mix and to be able to put a fireball or two in there every now and then. But the furysword was indeed lame. It was all the hottest new shit back when I played and all the kids wanted it.
I think most people go through a darkwraith hatred phase at some point. It triggered me into building an anti-low level griefer build, super op pyro sl10, that became my first dedicated twink. But the only difference between them and me is that I wasnt a darkwraith, I was a reverse dw. I let Taurus live purely so I could get invaded, act the noob then incinerate them, which was very satisfying for a while. My next figure of hate was the Dragon glitch build. Dragons became the number one target, kill on sight at all costs, glitcher or not. To understand how bad the Dragon glitch build was, you had to go against one. They could, for instance, shoot infinite poison knives at you at 100 miles an hour, or do a unstoppable dragon roar that was virtually impossible to get out of, stun lock you and force you off a cliff. Nasty build, made extinct circa patch 1.06 i think. My longest lasting enemy is the Darkmoon, no quarter given, non expected, call themselves Spirits of Vengence, spend time killing anti forest gankers and players who accidentally hit an npc.
Heres some very very early footage of the Dragon glitch in action in a peaceful way - now imagine instead of dropping prism stones hes using throwing knives or firebombs, and aiming them at you. Also bare in mind the game had only been out about 2 weeks when this vid was made (Blightown ???) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIbQ8HNPmEw
Yeah I also got tipped off to that the first time I played the game. Made it, used it like.. 30 minutes then never used it until 4 kings again.
The katanas are cool, the rapiers are cool, daggers are cool in some cases (thief knife is awesome), and spears are generally useful. Usually upgraded to +15 if you can, and use resins for fire/lightning/poison damage or enchanct the blades with magic/miracles.
Yeah, I remember liking both spears and katanas. The moveset just clicked with me I guess.
What's the verdict on using souls for levelling? I levelled way too fast and couldn't get any help at all for the bosses. Spend souls on equipment?
The fury sword scales more when you have 1-10 humanity in the bank, otherwise its base damage is lower.
Anyways, is there any way to get a light source for ToTG before killing S&O? I really want to run in and grab the large divine ember
Sure, you can get a Skull Lantern from the guys in the Catacombs. It's not the best light source, but it is a light source.
Those guys don't respawn though right? I made it through the catacombs and killed Pinwheel a while ago, but they never dropped them
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MordaRazgromМорда РазгромRuling the Taffer KingdomRegistered Userregular
My initial hate for Darkwraiths, aside from what I already mentioned, was also possibly due to the type of character that I was.
I was a mage-tank, wearing Havel's Set, wielding either an Enchanted Halberd or Butterfly Horn (moth, it's a goddamn moth, developers!). As you can imagine, with nearly 0 points into Endurance (spent everything on Int and Str and some Dex) I was heavily overencumbered. This was fine against NPC's because I never needed to roll, I just hold up my Wall-O-Iron and attack when the very predictable opportunity presented itself (Monster Hunter skills go!). This tactic was absolutely the worst one you can think of against human opponents. Nearly everyone was a crazy backstab build, which I had no answer to considering my turn speed was equivalent to an overloaded battleship. I couldn't attack because as awesome as the halberd is, it telegraphs the move for a good second or two before the actual hit, so in order for a PC to be hit by it, they'd have to be oblivious or set up in a perfect situation (tight corridor, no room to move, sapped stamina, no shield) which I could never set up properly.
Against NPC's, I was the god damn Juggernaut, nothing could stand in my way, I even laughed at O&S because the hammer couldn't get through my shield, and the lightning spear damage was so piddly I barely bothered to pay attention. To then get all my self-confidence shattered because a Darkwraith invasion took me out like I was a newborn, it had a really negative effect on me. Dark Souls, more than any other game, is about self-confidence, I've noticed. When I'm confident I play aggressively and don't give the enemies any real chances at hurting me. When I'm starting to doubt myself I tend to turtle and the enemies then rip me a new one after eating my stamina and then proceeding with a massive attack that takes out half my health.
Now that I've gone through the game once, I'm in a much better state of mind of Darkwraiths, I must say. I find myself actually enjoying fighting them (even though my record is something like 1 in 50+), and I don't focus on the negativity since I'm much more relaxed about the game.
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The Furysword scales to humanity, so if you're not carrying around 10 humanity, it's going to be underpowered. It's actually pretty significant -- I was using it down in New Londo and with 6 humanity, I was one-shotting Darkwraiths if I backstabbed them. Then, I ended up dying and losing my humanity somehow, and the furysword did about 50 less damage. Sad.
I like the Furysword but the moveset bugs me, and since most of the damage is fire it's useless against enemies with fire resistance. If you're at SL60 you'll probably do better using a normal weapon and just buffing it with resin.
MordaRazgromМорда РазгромRuling the Taffer KingdomRegistered Userregular
The only fight that I used the Furysword on and felt that it was decently justified was the Gargoyles. It was really good at slicing that tail off when you put the PIne Resin on it.
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Thing is, I already did the dex pyromancer build on the PS3. Now I got it for the PC and I'm thinking I'll try something else. But I don't really know what.
Edit: Follow-up question. Do you still need some sort of fix for the resolution on the PC?
Movitz on
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MordaRazgromМорда РазгромRuling the Taffer KingdomRegistered Userregular
Yeah, I remember liking both spears and katanas. The moveset just clicked with me I guess.
What's the verdict on using souls for levelling? I levelled way too fast and couldn't get any help at all for the bosses. Spend souls on equipment?
My main's SL 120 and it's actually pretty delicious since I have a huge amount of Strength and Intellect, so my spells hit like a Mac Truck and my weapons hit nearly as hard.
AS far as a different build, I'm really enjoying a Str-based two-handed sword warrior build. It's delicious when you flatten an enemy by bringing your oversized sword on their face.
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The fury sword scales more when you have 1-10 humanity in the bank, otherwise its base damage is lower.
Anyways, is there any way to get a light source for ToTG before killing S&O? I really want to run in and grab the large divine ember
Sure, you can get a Skull Lantern from the guys in the Catacombs. It's not the best light source, but it is a light source.
Those guys don't respawn though right? I made it through the catacombs and killed Pinwheel a while ago, but they never dropped them
I think I read that they patched the game so that when you kill the last of a type of non-respawning monster, it'll drop their items with 100% certainty. It works for the gargoyles, the armored boars and also for the necromancers.
Man I want to play this on PC. I get so mad at a friend of mine who thinks it's "stupid" that he "has to" buy a 360 controller to play it. I told him the game is designed for a controller, it's stupid to expect it to not work without one and that the 360 controller is just the bees knees and the reason to buy one is not for Dark Souls, but for the quality of it. So mad because I wish I could be playing on PC.
Which stat did you raise to take yourself up to SL2 ? Dex ? My SL3 is grinding to a halt now I've done s+o in ng+. I'm happy I got this far in the first place. I wanna get to izalith tho cos i want to invade in the lava fields, red on red, but other than that i'm quite happy to knock pve on the head and just do low level invading which is really good fun when you do it properly ie just fuckin around having fun with different armours and weapons etc rather than just pure noob destruction.
Yeah, I murdered the male undead merchant for his uchigatana, because I am an idiot and didn't realize you can just buy them from Shiva, and I ended up liking the moveset quite a bit.
For now, though, I have finally gotten a character to where they can use the Dragonslayer Spear, and it is fun as hell. Not that good of a weapon, as far as effectiveness, but I love the design enough to justify making a character for it. Reminds me of the lances that paladins in Fire Emblem used.
I'm a little disappointed that the Heavy > Heavy combo while two-handing doesn't actually impale targets, though. Just a little.
Discovered today that in co-op, skull lanterns don't light any area for other players, only for you. That made doing Tomb of the Giants all kinds of more fun.
Yeah, I remember liking both spears and katanas. The moveset just clicked with me I guess.
What's the verdict on using souls for levelling? I levelled way too fast and couldn't get any help at all for the bosses. Spend souls on equipment?
My main's SL 120 and it's actually pretty delicious since I have a huge amount of Strength and Intellect, so my spells hit like a Mac Truck and my weapons hit nearly as hard.
AS far as a different build, I'm really enjoying a Str-based two-handed sword warrior build. It's delicious when you flatten an enemy by bringing your oversized sword on their face.
Katana and the Balder Side Sword were my early favorite move sets and why my first character ended up DEX based.
But I've learned to love my current STR character. My chief weapons right now are Lightning Claymore and a +14 Zweihander. The Zwei, now that I have gotten familiar with it, is amazing two-handed. It's defense stance is even surprisingly good at 70%. Not sure if any weapons actually surpass it.
As I've said, I've been doing a lot of PVP and have basically two tactics that I use - sometimes they are combined in a single fight, but usually it's one or the other for the majority.
1) Zweihander - Used primarily against foes with mid-light armor with lower poise. I'll go defensive until I have an opening - usually after my opponent misses with a swing or two to burn some END if they are going to block with a higher stability shield, then chain swing my R1. Usually the first or second swing will break their guard and stagger them allowing for follow up swings for massive damage. Green blossom is a must and can add an additional swing from stamina recharge before my opponent gain regain their footing (Note: even a tiny amount of stamina recharge allows for a swing. You don't actually need to have the full amount the swing would use. Unlike blocking, there's no penalty I can see). I haven't yet managed to get R2 useful except in rare circumstances, like the enemy deciding to Estus or use another consumable.
2) Lightning Claymore - I use this against foes who have heavier high poise armor (Havel, Stone Guardian, etc), are proving too difficult to hit with the Zweihander, or are wielding very big high damage weapons that my Zweihander defenses can't handle. Here I become even more defensive, keeping my shield up and tacking occasional hacks at their shield to let my lightning damage slowly eat away at their health before backing off from any retaliation. I continue this until I have an opening after they miss a big swing, then I ideally strike in fast and furious with R1 slashes if I'm close enough, dealing a lot of damage. If I stagger them, it's usually all over as I can chain a surprising number of strikes. R2 is also useful as its stab has surprising range and can often hit an opponent while he's in a swing recovery that I backed away from.
Defensively, I'm outfitted with a +9 Elite Knight Armor set, a +5 Silver Knight Sheild and a +5 Crest Shield for mages. Ring wise I use Havel's Ring to keep myself under 50% load and the Steel Ring to boost my defense. I also keep the blue Magic Defense ring ready to swap for mages if I can.
Honestly, magic users still give me a ton of trouble. I'm getting better at dodging their spells though.
I expected the covenants to act like....factions, I guess? Instead it's just 'here's ways to dick over ransoms!' I'd like to see something like 'opposing' covenants, with a single item for players to call a response from the opposing faction. So like...
Tolling players (Gravelord) vs helping players (Sunbros)
Assassinating players (Darkwraith) vs protecting players (Darkmoon)
Honorable PvP duels (Dragon)
If you get invaded, pop your 'response crystal' and summon a Darkmoon. If you get infested, it calls Sunbros. Etc.
Yeah, I remember liking both spears and katanas. The moveset just clicked with me I guess.
What's the verdict on using souls for levelling? I levelled way too fast and couldn't get any help at all for the bosses. Spend souls on equipment?
My main's SL 120 and it's actually pretty delicious since I have a huge amount of Strength and Intellect, so my spells hit like a Mac Truck and my weapons hit nearly as hard.
AS far as a different build, I'm really enjoying a Str-based two-handed sword warrior build. It's delicious when you flatten an enemy by bringing your oversized sword on their face.
Katana and the Balder Side Sword were my early favorite move sets and why my first character ended up DEX based.
But I've learned to love my current STR character. My chief weapons right now are Lightning Claymore and a +14 Zweihander. The Zwei, now that I have gotten familiar with it, is amazing two-handed. It's defense stance is even surprisingly good at 70%. Not sure if any weapons actually surpass it.
As I've said, I've been doing a lot of PVP and have basically two tactics that I use - sometimes they are combined in a single fight, but usually it's one or the other for the majority.
1) Zweihander - Used primarily against foes with mid-light armor with lower poise. I'll go defensive until I have an opening - usually after my opponent misses with a swing or two to burn some END if they are going to block with a higher stability shield, then chain swing my R1. Usually the first or second swing will break their guard and stagger them allowing for follow up swings for massive damage. Green blossom is a must and can add an additional swing from stamina recharge before my opponent gain regain their footing (Note: even a tiny amount of stamina recharge allows for a swing. You don't actually need to have the full amount the swing would use. Unlike blocking, there's no penalty I can see). I haven't yet managed to get R2 useful except in rare circumstances, like the enemy deciding to Estus or use another consumable.
2) Lightning Claymore - I use this against foes who have heavier high poise armor (Havel, Stone Guardian, etc), are proving too difficult to hit with the Zweihander, or are wielding very big high damage weapons that my Zweihander defenses can't handle. Here I become even more defensive, keeping my shield up and tacking occasional hacks at their shield to let my lightning damage slowly eat away at their health before backing off from any retaliation. I continue this until I have an opening after they miss a big swing, then I ideally strike in fast and furious with R1 slashes if I'm close enough, dealing a lot of damage. If I stagger them, it's usually all over as I can chain a surprising number of strikes. R2 is also useful as its stab has surprising range and can often hit an opponent while he's in a swing recovery that I backed away from.
Defensively, I'm outfitted with a +9 Elite Knight Armor set, a +5 Silver Knight Sheild and a +5 Crest Shield for mages. Ring wise I use Havel's Ring to keep myself under 50% load and the Steel Ring to boost my defense. I also keep the blue Magic Defense ring ready to swap for mages if I can.
Honestly, magic users still give me a ton of trouble. I'm getting better at dodging their spells though.
I probably won't PvP at all I think. How do people get used to the ultra greatswords? They are just so extremely slow!
and @fawst do you not own a PC or what's keeping you from getting it? I have a PS3 and I use that controller for all kinds of games on my PC with motioninjoy. Works great for Dark Souls, I can show you how to set it up if you like? It wasn't too hard. And then I bough the game from an online vendor for like 10 EUR yesterday which is pretty cheap.
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If some days you just want to kill other players but not in a bad way like griefing noobs in undead burg, but in a good way like shooting havels/giants/moms/dads in the back with soul spear after pretending to be bush for half an hour, then this is the build for you.
Two handing wont help you, once your stamina goes its dark bead time. Find it strange you think parrys are cheap considering theyre one of the most difficult moves to pull off in the game, especially in pvp, or is it just a case of whatever kills you is cheap cos you died and they didnt ?
One thing I think could use a revamp is whatever the equivalent of the Darkmoon Covenant. Right now it just doesn't seem to work right to me. It's purpose seems like it SHOULD be the Anti-Darkwraith Covenant. But it's really not. It's often just another flavor of Darkwraith. So a few ideas.
1) Remove, or at least lessen, "Sin" acquired via PvE acts. I suppose some might still make sense from a story point of view, but I think a greater focus on actual PvP "sinners" would be an improvement when coupled with step 2
2) Spirits of Vengeance can invade people who have killed the area boss. Go with me on this. If we're talking about going after Darkwraiths who invade and kill players as being the goal of the Darkmoon Covenant, then we have a problem. Most of those guys are in areas - Anor Londo, the Parish, etc - where they've already killed the boss. They are completely safe from being invaded by Spirits of Vengeance, meanwhile can slaughter people with impunity. That means not much Vengeancing is going on. By allowing Darkmoons to not be blocked by a dead boss, they truly become hunters of the guilty. Nowhere is safe.
No he's saying he two hands because he thinks the damage is cheap, not because he thinks it will beat your build.
xbox GT: Big Will C H
I also fought Someone with the gamer tag "PA Bendery" who said PA did indeed stand for Penny Arcade. First time that I'm aware of that I've encountered a PAer unintentionally.
Yeah, I was as surprised as you were, sorry for being underhanded in our second to last encounter, I was waiting for my friend to come back so we could run oolacile. But i got what i deserved in our last one
What? Diablo 2 had no customization(unless you count picking a ready-made class and then changing the gear as customization).
I forgot how much I hate those fucking crows in the Painted World. One hit kills piss me off.
There are two characters I'm building, and I'm going all Sims on them.
1) My "Romeo" character. I have always been fascinated by medieval rapier duelists, so I decided to recreate one! He wields a rapier and a parrying dagger, and this has to be one of the most challenging things I've ever done in a game. I have to get the parries off just right, but I love the moveset of the thrusting swords, I can do a quick stab, then a quick hop back while slashing, then go in for a megastab, it's very satisfying and most enemies in Dark Souls don't have an effective answer to such a tactic. Indeed it is an unbelievably precise build, which leaves almost no room for error, but so much fun.
2) Viking matriarch. My second character is a Zweihander juggernaut. I remember reading a lot of love regarding the Zweihander and I never really understood, boy do I understand now! I'm pretty proud to say that I've managed to win for the very first time against a Darkwraith the other night. I cheesed it a little bit, of course, but I feel no shame whatsoever. The overhand Zweihander power-attack is a monster, and the opponent was using some kind of katana, obviously meant as a parry/backstab type of thing. I coaxed them into coming into a very narrow stairs, then just spammed the power-attack over and over.
The variety of this game is just intense. I have to control my urge to make a jack-of-all-trades character, which I generally do in all games, because I don't want an exact replica of my first character. So far "Romeo" is getting ready to take on Capra, and the Viking just took the Capra out, I'm taking it slow and steady
WiiU Username: MordaRazgrom
Steam Username: MordaRazgrom
WoW/Diablo 3 Battlenet Battletag: MordaRazgrom#1755
Me and my wife have a gamer YouTube page if interested www.youtube.com/TeamMarriage
I think the problem with covenants is that they tend to give just a little bit of benefit but they're completely unrelated to each other.
How about this -- if you're a darkwraith or gravelord, your likelihood of being invaded by one of the "vengeance" PVPers skyrockets. I think of it this way -- why should a Spirit of Vengeance attack a Sunbro? I mean, they could be a particularly bad sunbro, but in general a sunbro doesn't have lots of access to invasion tools. Or, being a Sunbro prevents you from doing invasions. Why not set up certain covenants as co-op only or invasion-only? For example:
Sunbro: co-op only, less likely to be invaded in general
Princess Guard: co-op only
Way of White: co-op only
Gravelords: invade everyone but gravelords, plus their funky ability
Darkwraith: invade everyone but darkwraiths
Darkmoons: invade gravelords, darkwraiths, non-covenanters.
I think the Forest Hunter covenant is probably the "best" at this in Dark Souls -- you only invade humans in the forest. That's neat, and is both "flavorful" and gives the group something specific. A lot of people enjoy the weird PVP, too, which I think is key. I don't think anyone should be immune from invasions, but I also think the dedicated servers thing will drastically help with this. Consider -- our current setup for Dark Souls means that for you to invade someone, you need to be in the same area and roughly the same level, AND the servers need to have put you "close" to each other on the network. You have a relatively small set of people to scan, and the server doesn't consistently poll new people.
On a dedicated server, the server can just say "You're a darkmoon, here are ALL of the 'bad guys' you can connect to" and go from there. Faster, easier, and more interesting. I do like the idea of special items that facilitate invasions under certain circumstances, like the covenant rings, and I hope they continue that. I too would be happy if joining certain covenants opened you up for invasions even if the boss was dead or you were dead.
Once I changed my perspective, it kind of changed me to actually give me the ability to enjoy the game to its fullest. I still can't say that I particularly enjoy getting invaded by someone when I'm just minding my own business. With the multitude of other things going on, the negativity of it just kind of gets minimized in my mind. I don't see myself ever even attempting to go the Darkwraith path, but I do now allow myself to find entertainment in the PvP aspects of the game, and not Alt+F4 every time I get a message "Dark Spirit XXXXXXX just invaded". Don't hate, before I got comfortable with the game, the invasions were such a massive stress-factor to me that they killed my enjoyment of the game whatsoever. I understand that by Alt+F4'ing I'm being a silly goose to the other person, but I felt like it was unfair for a noob like me
WiiU Username: MordaRazgrom
Steam Username: MordaRazgrom
WoW/Diablo 3 Battlenet Battletag: MordaRazgrom#1755
Me and my wife have a gamer YouTube page if interested www.youtube.com/TeamMarriage
Movitz: Go a dex/pyro/int build. But focuse more on the weapons then pyro/magic. Weapons are way more fun and the furysword is kind of lame.
Anyways, is there any way to get a light source for ToTG before killing S&O? I really want to run in and grab the large divine ember
Sure, you can get a Skull Lantern from the guys in the Catacombs. It's not the best light source, but it is a light source.
Right, I kindof liked the pyromancer weapon/magic mix and to be able to put a fireball or two in there every now and then. But the furysword was indeed lame. It was all the hottest new shit back when I played and all the kids wanted it.
Heres some very very early footage of the Dragon glitch in action in a peaceful way - now imagine instead of dropping prism stones hes using throwing knives or firebombs, and aiming them at you. Also bare in mind the game had only been out about 2 weeks when this vid was made (Blightown ???)
The katanas are cool, the rapiers are cool, daggers are cool in some cases (thief knife is awesome), and spears are generally useful. Usually upgraded to +15 if you can, and use resins for fire/lightning/poison damage or enchanct the blades with magic/miracles.
What's the verdict on using souls for levelling? I levelled way too fast and couldn't get any help at all for the bosses. Spend souls on equipment?
I was a mage-tank, wearing Havel's Set, wielding either an Enchanted Halberd or Butterfly Horn (moth, it's a goddamn moth, developers!). As you can imagine, with nearly 0 points into Endurance (spent everything on Int and Str and some Dex) I was heavily overencumbered. This was fine against NPC's because I never needed to roll, I just hold up my Wall-O-Iron and attack when the very predictable opportunity presented itself (Monster Hunter skills go!). This tactic was absolutely the worst one you can think of against human opponents. Nearly everyone was a crazy backstab build, which I had no answer to considering my turn speed was equivalent to an overloaded battleship. I couldn't attack because as awesome as the halberd is, it telegraphs the move for a good second or two before the actual hit, so in order for a PC to be hit by it, they'd have to be oblivious or set up in a perfect situation (tight corridor, no room to move, sapped stamina, no shield) which I could never set up properly.
Against NPC's, I was the god damn Juggernaut, nothing could stand in my way, I even laughed at O&S because the hammer couldn't get through my shield, and the lightning spear damage was so piddly I barely bothered to pay attention. To then get all my self-confidence shattered because a Darkwraith invasion took me out like I was a newborn, it had a really negative effect on me. Dark Souls, more than any other game, is about self-confidence, I've noticed. When I'm confident I play aggressively and don't give the enemies any real chances at hurting me. When I'm starting to doubt myself I tend to turtle and the enemies then rip me a new one after eating my stamina and then proceeding with a massive attack that takes out half my health.
Now that I've gone through the game once, I'm in a much better state of mind of Darkwraiths, I must say. I find myself actually enjoying fighting them (even though my record is something like 1 in 50+), and I don't focus on the negativity since I'm much more relaxed about the game.
WiiU Username: MordaRazgrom
Steam Username: MordaRazgrom
WoW/Diablo 3 Battlenet Battletag: MordaRazgrom#1755
Me and my wife have a gamer YouTube page if interested www.youtube.com/TeamMarriage
I like the Furysword but the moveset bugs me, and since most of the damage is fire it's useless against enemies with fire resistance. If you're at SL60 you'll probably do better using a normal weapon and just buffing it with resin.
WiiU Username: MordaRazgrom
Steam Username: MordaRazgrom
WoW/Diablo 3 Battlenet Battletag: MordaRazgrom#1755
Me and my wife have a gamer YouTube page if interested www.youtube.com/TeamMarriage
Edit: Follow-up question. Do you still need some sort of fix for the resolution on the PC?
My main's SL 120 and it's actually pretty delicious since I have a huge amount of Strength and Intellect, so my spells hit like a Mac Truck and my weapons hit nearly as hard.
AS far as a different build, I'm really enjoying a Str-based two-handed sword warrior build. It's delicious when you flatten an enemy by bringing your oversized sword on their face.
WiiU Username: MordaRazgrom
Steam Username: MordaRazgrom
WoW/Diablo 3 Battlenet Battletag: MordaRazgrom#1755
Me and my wife have a gamer YouTube page if interested www.youtube.com/TeamMarriage
I'm.....just going to go to bed now so I don't get stuck all night.
Which stat did you raise to take yourself up to SL2 ? Dex ? My SL3 is grinding to a halt now I've done s+o in ng+. I'm happy I got this far in the first place. I wanna get to izalith tho cos i want to invade in the lava fields, red on red, but other than that i'm quite happy to knock pve on the head and just do low level invading which is really good fun when you do it properly ie just fuckin around having fun with different armours and weapons etc rather than just pure noob destruction.
For now, though, I have finally gotten a character to where they can use the Dragonslayer Spear, and it is fun as hell. Not that good of a weapon, as far as effectiveness, but I love the design enough to justify making a character for it. Reminds me of the lances that paladins in Fire Emblem used.
I'm a little disappointed that the Heavy > Heavy combo while two-handing doesn't actually impale targets, though. Just a little.
Discovered today that in co-op, skull lanterns don't light any area for other players, only for you. That made doing Tomb of the Giants all kinds of more fun.
P.S. fuck you dog skeletons fuck youuuuuuuu
Katana and the Balder Side Sword were my early favorite move sets and why my first character ended up DEX based.
But I've learned to love my current STR character. My chief weapons right now are Lightning Claymore and a +14 Zweihander. The Zwei, now that I have gotten familiar with it, is amazing two-handed. It's defense stance is even surprisingly good at 70%. Not sure if any weapons actually surpass it.
As I've said, I've been doing a lot of PVP and have basically two tactics that I use - sometimes they are combined in a single fight, but usually it's one or the other for the majority.
1) Zweihander - Used primarily against foes with mid-light armor with lower poise. I'll go defensive until I have an opening - usually after my opponent misses with a swing or two to burn some END if they are going to block with a higher stability shield, then chain swing my R1. Usually the first or second swing will break their guard and stagger them allowing for follow up swings for massive damage. Green blossom is a must and can add an additional swing from stamina recharge before my opponent gain regain their footing (Note: even a tiny amount of stamina recharge allows for a swing. You don't actually need to have the full amount the swing would use. Unlike blocking, there's no penalty I can see). I haven't yet managed to get R2 useful except in rare circumstances, like the enemy deciding to Estus or use another consumable.
2) Lightning Claymore - I use this against foes who have heavier high poise armor (Havel, Stone Guardian, etc), are proving too difficult to hit with the Zweihander, or are wielding very big high damage weapons that my Zweihander defenses can't handle. Here I become even more defensive, keeping my shield up and tacking occasional hacks at their shield to let my lightning damage slowly eat away at their health before backing off from any retaliation. I continue this until I have an opening after they miss a big swing, then I ideally strike in fast and furious with R1 slashes if I'm close enough, dealing a lot of damage. If I stagger them, it's usually all over as I can chain a surprising number of strikes. R2 is also useful as its stab has surprising range and can often hit an opponent while he's in a swing recovery that I backed away from.
Defensively, I'm outfitted with a +9 Elite Knight Armor set, a +5 Silver Knight Sheild and a +5 Crest Shield for mages. Ring wise I use Havel's Ring to keep myself under 50% load and the Steel Ring to boost my defense. I also keep the blue Magic Defense ring ready to swap for mages if I can.
Honestly, magic users still give me a ton of trouble. I'm getting better at dodging their spells though.
Tolling players (Gravelord) vs helping players (Sunbros)
Assassinating players (Darkwraith) vs protecting players (Darkmoon)
Honorable PvP duels (Dragon)
If you get invaded, pop your 'response crystal' and summon a Darkmoon. If you get infested, it calls Sunbros. Etc.
I probably won't PvP at all I think. How do people get used to the ultra greatswords? They are just so extremely slow!
and @fawst do you not own a PC or what's keeping you from getting it? I have a PS3 and I use that controller for all kinds of games on my PC with motioninjoy. Works great for Dark Souls, I can show you how to set it up if you like? It wasn't too hard. And then I bough the game from an online vendor for like 10 EUR yesterday which is pretty cheap.