Poise is definitely still a functional defensive stat.
It's main function is to make you harder to stagger while in an animation. The difference between Dark Souls 1 and 2 is that now, you don't necessarily get to rely on poise to let you start an animation after getting hit. This is the tradeoff for being able to equip medium-heavy armor up to 75% load without much penalty. The old style of trying to just ignore your opponent's attacks and mash away doesn't work nearly as well. And you know what? Good fucking riddance.
Interesting bit about poise not regenerating until it hits zero. That is very good knowledge to have.
Wonder if you could use knives to plink away poise before going for a combo.
MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
edited March 2014
Dragon man get!
Then I was invaded by a dirtbag with arrows and pyromancy all over the place.
He got his.
Roll uppercut in the face as he was casting his last desperate firestorm. Which didn't even kill me because 50 vigor.
Dragon armor is ammmmaaaazzzziiiinnnggggg. No poise, 11.5 total weight, oh my god the resistances.
It doesn't do any unarmed damage though. Or a special moveset.
Sigh.
Morninglord on
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So I spent most of the last few days dying to the Ruin Sentinels over and over and over again. I've been playing as an int/strength build that combined decent spellcasting with the ability to hold a solid shield and weapon, and I'd tried every conceivable spell and equipment loadout and strategy I could think of, but for the life of me I couldn't beat them. I was losing my shit in that very specific Dark Souls way, where you know the enemy can be beaten if you can just avoid making any mistakes...and then you go and make mistakes over and over again anyway. And while I knew there was a way to bypass them entirely, at this point pride was on the line--I'd be damned if I let those goddamn Hammer Bros wannabes get the best of me. So I just kept repeating my personal dark souls mantra
"Its not impossible, I just suck"
And trying over and over again.
Finally this morning I woke up, and came to a decision: if I was going to be a mage, then I was going to go all in on being a mage. I used a soul vessel, took everything out of strength, dex, vigor and endurance and pumped intelligence, faith and attunement like crazy. Upgraded my archdrake's staff and archdrake chime as high as I could get them. Went back and spent a while grinding to get all the best damage spells from Carhillion and Felkin, in particular Reasonant Soul and Soul Spear Barrage. I loaded up on enough souls to cast my Reasonant souls, and put on the ring that buffs casting time. Then I went back to face them...
And seriously, no joke, I killed them first try without taking a single hit. Rolled in, completely stunlocked the first one with soul spear barrage followed by greater heavy soul arrow and killed him before he could move, used Reasonant Soul to completely annihilate the second one (it was basically dead by the time it got to the platform, the amount of damage that spell does is crazy and well worth the soul cost), then dropped down and kited the 3rd one with Dark Orbs and Greater Heavy Soul Arrows. The only damage I took was from the drop down.
When I beat those fuckers after all that trying, when my efforts to rethink my approach completely paid off, I felt like I actually accomplished something hugely important. Its a feeling I don't get from any other game, because no other game pushes me to challenge myself and think about what I'm doing the way Dark Souls does. I sat there in my living room in my bathrobe, grinning like a dipshit for about 15 minutes, not even really doing anything, just enjoying the win.
This is Dark Souls, and I've missed this feeling in my life.
Man this "move slowly in waist deep water" thing is making the swamp in Blighttown into a real pain in the butt
There are ninja and pyromancer sets in the area. Really useful for the poison resistance.
Good news! I'm a pyromancer. I don't know how people get through this garbage without some serious buffs. I guess they're just poisoned a lot, or farm the hell out of purple moss.
Man this "move slowly in waist deep water" thing is making the swamp in Blighttown into a real pain in the butt
There are ninja and pyromancer sets in the area. Really useful for the poison resistance.
Good news! I'm a pyromancer. I don't know how people get through this garbage without some serious buffs. I guess they're just poisoned a lot, or farm the hell out of purple moss.
We usually use the ring that lets us move normally, and run in straight lines to our goals. Pop a moss before the boss, and CHARGE.
Magic is crazy good in this game. It's getting to the point that where in terms of PVP, I think they need to buff armor resistances to cope with it. That or, with something I would actually hate to see happen, nerf spells. Balance may not have been great in Dark Souls 1 in regards to PVP, but in this game it's like they finally tore up their number sheets and screamed "FUCK BALANCE!"
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+1
cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
I haven't been invaded once in this game yet. Granted I've been hollow most of the time, but still.
it's really hard to be invaded during your first playthrough due to how all the systems are set up, and your best bet for having it happen is to be invaded by a bellkeeper or summoned by a rat
Magic is crazy good in this game. It's getting to the point that where in terms of PVP, I think they need to buff armor resistances to cope with it. That or, with something I would actually hate to see happen, nerf spells. Balance may not have been great in Dark Souls 1 in regards to PVP, but in this game it's like they finally tore up their number sheets and screamed "FUCK BALANCE!"
I think it's more that it's really easy to get a fuckton of resist to physical compared to magic - I'll see people who barely take damage from physical because full havels (kind of annoying, considering I prefer faster weapons, so it REALLY hurts my damage), but basically everyone suffers horribly to Flame Swathe and the like.
MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
edited March 2014
I do not have a lot of trouble avoiding spells in pvp while fighting naked. The spell melee attack is also really easy to see. If I get hit it is my fault.
Remember I'm playing on the Iron Keep bridge. I do not get a ton of room to move.
If I get killed by a one shot I generally know I could have torn them apart if I got to them, because the few times I've been one shot after landing a hit I took most of their health. Anyone who survives a decent amount of hits from me? They can't one shot me. Not even close.
Plus the one shot is a combo anyway. They have to cast crystal soul mass and then hit you with a soul spear. There's a few barrage spells but they're a joke. The magic melee attack does a lot, but it has never one shot me.
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Bwuh? I don't think I've lost a single match to a dedicated caster. Spells seem thoroughly mediocre in PvP this time. Trivial to dodge even the fastest of them, and you get a million years to unload on the caster in their post-cast animation. The only spell that I've seen that represents a credible threat is the hex that sends out a swarm of homing projectiles which make two or three passes at you.
Nothing remotely on the level of, say, Tranquil Walk of Peace at launch... and I still haven't run into anyone spamming Wrath of God or Great Combustion in Dark Souls II.
Not to say you're wrong - just that I haven't had a problem so far.
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MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
edited March 2014
I very rarely get hit by any pyromancy at all. When I see the glowy hand I know it's dodging time as soon as their hand twitches.
I get hit by the melee spell attack sorcery a lot when I'm too aggressive, because I have to get really close. Sokpuppet uses a lolrapier (seriously, did you see that 1h break?) so I'm guessing it is a lot easier for him to interrupt.
After I get my vit up a bit I think I'll raise faith/attunement for greater magic shield. I don't expect to run into a lot of pvp but I'm going to play all of ng+ online so if I do get a random mofo in my boss room I wanna be able to prevent sorc spam.
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The main thing is that spells are hugely telegraphed and you can basically roll them all the same way.
It's totally possible that there simply aren't many people running with magic yet. There are enough new spells that there could be broken combos out there. Just haven't seen 'em yet.
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MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
edited March 2014
I have run into some very, very good sorcerors. But I don't have the kind of weapon that makes it easy to punish mistakes. I would be killing 9 sorcerors out of ten with a decent range melee weapon.
I ran into one guy who was just lightning fast at all his combos. He was wearing casting gear, yes, but he also knew how to use it. This guy's tells were very quick and he was doing melee to stop me from coming in then immediately setting up ranged combos, meaning he has to be switching his spells fast.
I was impressed. I actually managed to kill him in the end but I had like ten health left and it was intense.
With enough fast casting gear spells have an obscenely short telegraph time. Something to watch for Sokpuppet. If you see a wizard hat watch yourself. That whole set gives casting speed. You can't take those guys all casual like you can when a full physical busts out his lolslow fire hand.
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Man this "move slowly in waist deep water" thing is making the swamp in Blighttown into a real pain in the butt
There are ninja and pyromancer sets in the area. Really useful for the poison resistance.
Good news! I'm a pyromancer. I don't know how people get through this garbage without some serious buffs. I guess they're just poisoned a lot, or farm the hell out of purple moss.
If you go back to the Undead Asylum, there's a ring there that lets you move quicker through water. You have to make sure to get the key off the roof off that one building in Firelink first, though.
One thing I've been meaning to play with is Lingering Flame onhand/Force offhand. Could get hilarious if I can manual target the lingerings accurately.
Oh also! I seriously need to start practicing spell parries. Haven't even attempted that yet.
I haven't yet experimented with sorcery at all, but I imagine the binoculars might be the trick to mastering them. Also, you should use the fact that the other guy can't see you switching spells to your advantage.
I mean, there's all kinds of spells for different situations, just like you have different heavy and weak attacks, guardbreaks, sprinting attacks, parries, dodges for melee.
The biggest weakness is to just spam ranged attacks. That's not gonna work, too easy to dodge.
One thing I've noticed is that some weapons lose a LOT of physical power when infusing, and others barely lose ANY. Of course, there's also the scaling hit to consider, but...
Claws in particular lose almost nothing, so the only real reason not to infuse is to maintain their scaling...
I wish I had a better soul farming spot. What are good bets for endgame co-op? I may as well finish off Sunbros...
I have to say I don't really understand poise now. It doesn't stop you from flinching when getting hit, even against light weapons, and you'll still flinch getting hit mid-attack, too. Tested with shitloads of poise, including poise rings.
So, I don't know if it's bugged, if it was intended to do nothing, or if everyone using the Stone Ring in PvP just makes it useless. I can't imagine them meaning to have the Stone Ring invalidate all poise, though.
Yep, poise does nothing. It does not prevent you from being staggered while you are attacking. I have lots of poise and single R1 attacks stagger me the first time.
There is one thing poise might do - may prevent you from being staggered when you hit a shield. That happened to me all the time in DS1 but never DS2
As an attacker of poisers, you are wrong.
As both an attacker of poise, and a user of poise, I am correct.
Sounds like your caestus just suck or you are using the wrong attacks
I have never not been stunned by people mashing R1 at me, even with 80+ poise. I have never not had people be stunned by mashing R1 at them, even people wearing heavier armor than I'm wearing. It's not letting them break out of being attacked, it's not keeping me from being interrupted in the middle of attacks in a 1v2 situation. I'm not sure what it does at all.
Even the test you quoted from gamefaqs indicated poise is pretty conclusively broken across the board. The poise break listed for weapons seems to have no correlation to how much poise they actually break through, and the stone ring does nothing.
The only thing it might be doing is preventing you from being staggered when you wail on a shield. In DS1 that shit would get you killed pretty fast. Here it seems a surefire path to victory!
Here I see functionally no difference between the poise of someone wearing cloth caster robes, and someone wearing the heaviest armor. Maybe there's a tiny bit of difference for the absolute worst weapons in the game, which it sounds like caestus might be. It may not literally be doing nothing but it sure seems like it's almost doing nothing! If the numbers from that thread are to be believed, the poise you get naturally from raising end/adp and such is literally worthless as it won't block a single hit from the lightest weapons in the game. I can't think that's intended.
Very, VERY occasionally I have not been stunned in the middle of an attack, but that happens about as frequently as a lagstab, so I assume it's lag related. It's certainly nothing I can count on or plan around. It's not just that the system seems completely different from DS1, it's that it seems very inconsistent as well.
I'll be honest, you get ONE full fasting of that pyromancy and it takes two slots. It can and will decimate stuff, but it's mainly for the flashiness (unless you're toting a fair amount of humanity, in which case summoning Chaos is usually helpful)
By the way, I ran into the ONLY place in the game where setting something on fire actually seems to help
the one in earthen peak
and I'm kind of irked about it, because it's such a missed opportunity. It's basically not something I would ever have figured out on my own, I just happened to read a message right by it. You spend all this time carefully lighting every brazier you come across, all of which do jack shit, and then the one time setting something on fire really helps, there's no brazier!! They could easily have put a brazier there and it would have made perfect sense. Players would say "Oh, THAT's why I have been carrying these torches around all this time"
They spend all this time teaching the player that the things you light on fire look like THIS and then completely break that rule.
To balance this criticism, I did love how after the you knock the stone into the well in Majula and are rewarded, you think it's a good idea to knock the stone into the well in Lost Bastille and are...rewarded...quite differently
By the way, I ran into the ONLY place in the game where setting something on fire actually seems to help
the one in earthen peak
and I'm kind of irked about it, because it's such a missed opportunity. It's basically not something I would ever have figured out on my own, I just happened to read a message right by it. You spend all this time carefully lighting every brazier you come across, all of which do jack shit, and then the one time setting something on fire really helps, there's no brazier!! They could easily have put a brazier there and it would have made perfect sense. Players would say "Oh, THAT's why I have been carrying these torches around all this time"
They spend all this time teaching the player that the things you light on fire look like THIS and then completely break that rule.
To balance this criticism, I did love how after the you knock the stone into the well in Majula and are rewarded, you think it's a good idea to knock the stone into the well in Lost Bastille and are...rewarded...quite differently
So, I actually figured out the Majula one after Bastille (that is, I figured it out in Bastille then remembered it in Majula).
There is, however, a spot where lighting a torch matters.
I have to say I don't really understand poise now. It doesn't stop you from flinching when getting hit, even against light weapons, and you'll still flinch getting hit mid-attack, too. Tested with shitloads of poise, including poise rings.
So, I don't know if it's bugged, if it was intended to do nothing, or if everyone using the Stone Ring in PvP just makes it useless. I can't imagine them meaning to have the Stone Ring invalidate all poise, though.
Yep, poise does nothing. It does not prevent you from being staggered while you are attacking. I have lots of poise and single R1 attacks stagger me the first time.
There is one thing poise might do - may prevent you from being staggered when you hit a shield. That happened to me all the time in DS1 but never DS2
As an attacker of poisers, you are wrong.
As both an attacker of poise, and a user of poise, I am correct.
Sounds like your caestus just suck or you are using the wrong attacks
I have never not been stunned by people mashing R1 at me, even with 80+ poise. I have never not had people be stunned by mashing R1 at them, even people wearing heavier armor than I'm wearing. It's not letting them break out of being attacked, it's not keeping me from being interrupted in the middle of attacks in a 1v2 situation. I'm not sure what it does at all.
Even the test you quoted from gamefaqs indicated poise is pretty conclusively broken across the board. The poise break listed for weapons seems to have no correlation to how much poise they actually break through, and the stone ring does nothing.
The only thing it might be doing is preventing you from being staggered when you wail on a shield. In DS1 that shit would get you killed pretty fast. Here it seems a surefire path to victory!
Here I see functionally no difference between the poise of someone wearing cloth caster robes, and someone wearing the heaviest armor. Maybe there's a tiny bit of difference for the absolute worst weapons in the game, which it sounds like caestus might be. It may not literally be doing nothing but it sure seems like it's almost doing nothing! If the numbers from that thread are to be believed, the poise you get naturally from raising end/adp and such is literally worthless as it won't block a single hit from the lightest weapons in the game. I can't think that's intended.
Very, VERY occasionally I have not been stunned in the middle of an attack, but that happens about as frequently as a lagstab, so I assume it's lag related. It's certainly nothing I can count on or plan around. It's not just that the system seems completely different from DS1, it's that it seems very inconsistent as well.
Yep, poise does nothing. It does not prevent you from being staggered while you are attacking.
I'm addressing specific statements, factually incorrect statements, that you have made.
"Poise does nothing" = False.
Truth: Poise has higher breakpoints. If you are above those breakpoints x attack will not stagger you.
"It does not prevent you from being staggered while you are attacking" = False. It can, and does, prevent you from being staggered, if you are hit with an attack that cannot break your poise.
Those two statements are what I reacted to.
Both of those statements are untrue. I also presented proof to back that up.
According to that listing Caestus is equal to a dagger.
I am not interested in discussing the rest of your rant against poise. I'm only interested in pointing out when you have said something wrong. I'm not really interested in what you said about how it should be, or whether it's intended, I don't really care. Those parts are unchallenged by me. Go ahead and say them. I'm not going to tell you that you are wrong to say that poise should be differently handled. But I will tell you exactly how it actually works now.
Knowing lots about the currently existing game mechanics. That's my thing.
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Sirialisof the Halite Throne.Registered Userregular
Even though I was going for Melee/Pyromancy for my build it is too hard to pass up sorcery entirely, at 14 int I can use Magic Weapon, Hidden Weapon (does it stack with other weapon sorceries?) Cast Light, Chameleon, Soul Arrow, Great Soul Arrow and Shockwave
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MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
edited March 2014
I've also done a lot of research on poise the last few days. I've seen a lot of tests, actual tests, not "my personal experience".
There's no firm conclusions yet other than those breakpoints being real things, and stuff like how much hyper armor it gives, which weapons it gives it to, and whether it affects stamina loss when blocking in addition to stability (I've seen this said multiple times but haven't found a test yet) are all still up in the air. They get said a lot but I can't find any decent tests.
It does seem that poise works fundamentally differently to DS1 in PVP.
And, frankly?
Thank christ.
Poise in pvp was retarded. You could just jog straight past people for a backstab.
I'm also going to, you know, ignore the whole "You can just r1 r1 r1 all day" argument.
I've got 21 scales now.
Do you know how I got them?
Killing people who do stupid shit like that.
It's a very low level strat. If it is all you have experienced you haven't fought anyone actually decent at pvp. I recommend waiting until you get to iron keep and can actually engage in some dragon cov duels, where there are people actually good at the game. Some, you know, mind games, and things.
I've had some incredible fights and hardly any of them are R1 spamfests. They do use R1, yes, it is a decent combo, but it isn't the be all and end all. You wont kill me with a single R1 chain with a fast weapon. Nobody could, even when I was naked.
The people who killed me reliably really mixed up their attacks, rolled a lot, used their roll and distance attacks, and tricked me with delayed attacks.
I had this one absolutely beautiful fight against this really fat (girl voice!) girl using really heavy armor from a late game boss and that bosses heavy mace. Man that was a beautiful fight. It went up and down the bridge, we both got really low, she never used estus, and then at the end she got me with this beautiful delayed second attack when I came in to punish. An attack she'd never used before!
She bowed to me after that and I applaud her for that win because she really got me then. She really did. It was beautiful.
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Posts
There are ninja and pyromancer sets in the area. Really useful for the poison resistance.
"We have years of struggle ahead, mostly within ourselves." - Made in USA
Wonder if you could use knives to plink away poise before going for a combo.
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Then I was invaded by a dirtbag with arrows and pyromancy all over the place.
He got his.
Roll uppercut in the face as he was casting his last desperate firestorm. Which didn't even kill me because 50 vigor.
Dragon armor is ammmmaaaazzzziiiinnnggggg. No poise, 11.5 total weight, oh my god the resistances.
It doesn't do any unarmed damage though.
Sigh.
"Its not impossible, I just suck"
And trying over and over again.
Finally this morning I woke up, and came to a decision: if I was going to be a mage, then I was going to go all in on being a mage. I used a soul vessel, took everything out of strength, dex, vigor and endurance and pumped intelligence, faith and attunement like crazy. Upgraded my archdrake's staff and archdrake chime as high as I could get them. Went back and spent a while grinding to get all the best damage spells from Carhillion and Felkin, in particular Reasonant Soul and Soul Spear Barrage. I loaded up on enough souls to cast my Reasonant souls, and put on the ring that buffs casting time. Then I went back to face them...
And seriously, no joke, I killed them first try without taking a single hit. Rolled in, completely stunlocked the first one with soul spear barrage followed by greater heavy soul arrow and killed him before he could move, used Reasonant Soul to completely annihilate the second one (it was basically dead by the time it got to the platform, the amount of damage that spell does is crazy and well worth the soul cost), then dropped down and kited the 3rd one with Dark Orbs and Greater Heavy Soul Arrows. The only damage I took was from the drop down.
When I beat those fuckers after all that trying, when my efforts to rethink my approach completely paid off, I felt like I actually accomplished something hugely important. Its a feeling I don't get from any other game, because no other game pushes me to challenge myself and think about what I'm doing the way Dark Souls does. I sat there in my living room in my bathrobe, grinning like a dipshit for about 15 minutes, not even really doing anything, just enjoying the win.
This is Dark Souls, and I've missed this feeling in my life.
Good news! I'm a pyromancer. I don't know how people get through this garbage without some serious buffs. I guess they're just poisoned a lot, or farm the hell out of purple moss.
We usually use the ring that lets us move normally, and run in straight lines to our goals. Pop a moss before the boss, and CHARGE.
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I think it's more that it's really easy to get a fuckton of resist to physical compared to magic - I'll see people who barely take damage from physical because full havels (kind of annoying, considering I prefer faster weapons, so it REALLY hurts my damage), but basically everyone suffers horribly to Flame Swathe and the like.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
Remember I'm playing on the Iron Keep bridge. I do not get a ton of room to move.
If I get killed by a one shot I generally know I could have torn them apart if I got to them, because the few times I've been one shot after landing a hit I took most of their health. Anyone who survives a decent amount of hits from me? They can't one shot me. Not even close.
Plus the one shot is a combo anyway. They have to cast crystal soul mass and then hit you with a soul spear. There's a few barrage spells but they're a joke. The magic melee attack does a lot, but it has never one shot me.
Nothing remotely on the level of, say, Tranquil Walk of Peace at launch... and I still haven't run into anyone spamming Wrath of God or Great Combustion in Dark Souls II.
Not to say you're wrong - just that I haven't had a problem so far.
I get hit by the melee spell attack sorcery a lot when I'm too aggressive, because I have to get really close. Sokpuppet uses a lolrapier (seriously, did you see that 1h break?) so I'm guessing it is a lot easier for him to interrupt.
After I get my vit up a bit I think I'll raise faith/attunement for greater magic shield. I don't expect to run into a lot of pvp but I'm going to play all of ng+ online so if I do get a random mofo in my boss room I wanna be able to prevent sorc spam.
It's totally possible that there simply aren't many people running with magic yet. There are enough new spells that there could be broken combos out there. Just haven't seen 'em yet.
I ran into one guy who was just lightning fast at all his combos. He was wearing casting gear, yes, but he also knew how to use it. This guy's tells were very quick and he was doing melee to stop me from coming in then immediately setting up ranged combos, meaning he has to be switching his spells fast.
I was impressed. I actually managed to kill him in the end but I had like ten health left and it was intense.
With enough fast casting gear spells have an obscenely short telegraph time. Something to watch for Sokpuppet. If you see a wizard hat watch yourself. That whole set gives casting speed. You can't take those guys all casual like you can when a full physical busts out his lolslow fire hand.
Oh also! I seriously need to start practicing spell parries. Haven't even attempted that yet.
I mean, there's all kinds of spells for different situations, just like you have different heavy and weak attacks, guardbreaks, sprinting attacks, parries, dodges for melee.
The biggest weakness is to just spam ranged attacks. That's not gonna work, too easy to dodge.
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I'm not going to fight the Ancient Dragon.
I'm in the dragon cov.
He's my mate. How rude would that be eh?
If he attacked me first it's fair game, but he doesn't. I only attack dragons who attack me.
Claws in particular lose almost nothing, so the only real reason not to infuse is to maintain their scaling...
I wish I had a better soul farming spot. What are good bets for endgame co-op? I may as well finish off Sunbros...
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So sexy.
It's all glinty and shit.
I am a bling bling mofo right now let me tell you.
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And how I don't need to raise any magic stats to keep my pyromancy strong
And, well
I'm pumping all my points into Strength, now
As both an attacker of poise, and a user of poise, I am correct.
Sounds like your caestus just suck or you are using the wrong attacks
I have never not been stunned by people mashing R1 at me, even with 80+ poise. I have never not had people be stunned by mashing R1 at them, even people wearing heavier armor than I'm wearing. It's not letting them break out of being attacked, it's not keeping me from being interrupted in the middle of attacks in a 1v2 situation. I'm not sure what it does at all.
Even the test you quoted from gamefaqs indicated poise is pretty conclusively broken across the board. The poise break listed for weapons seems to have no correlation to how much poise they actually break through, and the stone ring does nothing.
The only thing it might be doing is preventing you from being staggered when you wail on a shield. In DS1 that shit would get you killed pretty fast. Here it seems a surefire path to victory!
Here I see functionally no difference between the poise of someone wearing cloth caster robes, and someone wearing the heaviest armor. Maybe there's a tiny bit of difference for the absolute worst weapons in the game, which it sounds like caestus might be. It may not literally be doing nothing but it sure seems like it's almost doing nothing! If the numbers from that thread are to be believed, the poise you get naturally from raising end/adp and such is literally worthless as it won't block a single hit from the lightest weapons in the game. I can't think that's intended.
Very, VERY occasionally I have not been stunned in the middle of an attack, but that happens about as frequently as a lagstab, so I assume it's lag related. It's certainly nothing I can count on or plan around. It's not just that the system seems completely different from DS1, it's that it seems very inconsistent as well.
PSN: Vorpallion Twitch: Vorpallion
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
But at the same time
One-handing that axe would be awesome
imagine having a hand wielding a giant axe
and another hand on fire
Or is it a different mag adjust for each element and the 'strike' damage shown for the element is the mag adjust?
In that case..what element are things like heals?
PSN: Vorpallion Twitch: Vorpallion
No, another hand summoning an inferno from the depths of the earth, painting the ground in blood and lava.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
Yes
Yes these are rapidly determining how my build is going to go
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
They spend all this time teaching the player that the things you light on fire look like THIS and then completely break that rule.
To balance this criticism, I did love how after the you knock the stone into the well in Majula and are rewarded, you think it's a good idea to knock the stone into the well in Lost Bastille and are...rewarded...quite differently
PSN: Vorpallion Twitch: Vorpallion
So, I actually figured out the Majula one after Bastille (that is, I figured it out in Bastille then remembered it in Majula).
There is, however, a spot where lighting a torch matters.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
I'm not sure how much of that is due to the graphics downgrade.
PSN: Vorpallion Twitch: Vorpallion
I'm addressing specific statements, factually incorrect statements, that you have made.
"Poise does nothing" = False.
Truth: Poise has higher breakpoints. If you are above those breakpoints x attack will not stagger you.
"It does not prevent you from being staggered while you are attacking" = False. It can, and does, prevent you from being staggered, if you are hit with an attack that cannot break your poise.
Those two statements are what I reacted to.
Both of those statements are untrue. I also presented proof to back that up.
According to that listing Caestus is equal to a dagger.
I am not interested in discussing the rest of your rant against poise. I'm only interested in pointing out when you have said something wrong. I'm not really interested in what you said about how it should be, or whether it's intended, I don't really care. Those parts are unchallenged by me. Go ahead and say them. I'm not going to tell you that you are wrong to say that poise should be differently handled. But I will tell you exactly how it actually works now.
Knowing lots about the currently existing game mechanics. That's my thing.
There's no firm conclusions yet other than those breakpoints being real things, and stuff like how much hyper armor it gives, which weapons it gives it to, and whether it affects stamina loss when blocking in addition to stability (I've seen this said multiple times but haven't found a test yet) are all still up in the air. They get said a lot but I can't find any decent tests.
It does seem that poise works fundamentally differently to DS1 in PVP.
And, frankly?
Thank christ.
Poise in pvp was retarded. You could just jog straight past people for a backstab.
I'm also going to, you know, ignore the whole "You can just r1 r1 r1 all day" argument.
I've got 21 scales now.
Do you know how I got them?
Killing people who do stupid shit like that.
It's a very low level strat. If it is all you have experienced you haven't fought anyone actually decent at pvp. I recommend waiting until you get to iron keep and can actually engage in some dragon cov duels, where there are people actually good at the game. Some, you know, mind games, and things.
I've had some incredible fights and hardly any of them are R1 spamfests. They do use R1, yes, it is a decent combo, but it isn't the be all and end all. You wont kill me with a single R1 chain with a fast weapon. Nobody could, even when I was naked.
The people who killed me reliably really mixed up their attacks, rolled a lot, used their roll and distance attacks, and tricked me with delayed attacks.
I had this one absolutely beautiful fight against this really fat (girl voice!) girl using really heavy armor from a late game boss and that bosses heavy mace. Man that was a beautiful fight. It went up and down the bridge, we both got really low, she never used estus, and then at the end she got me with this beautiful delayed second attack when I came in to punish. An attack she'd never used before!
She bowed to me after that and I applaud her for that win because she really got me then. She really did. It was beautiful.